I have a collection of stories I didn’t want to miss.
Microsoft will suspend access to its cloud services for Russian users due to European sanctions imposed on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. Softline, a major distributor of Microsoft products in Russia, confirmed the suspension and recommended backing up data associated with foreign cloud services. This move follows other tech companies exiting the Russian market or suspending services due to sanctions. Local users are urged to consider domestic alternatives like Yandex 360, SaaS VK, and Softline Universe.
This one you couldn’t miss — The US Department of Justice, along with 16 state and district attorneys general, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market. The lawsuit alleges Apple imposes contractual restrictions on developers and withholds critical access to prevent competition. The government points to various ways that Apple has allegedly maintained its monopoly, including disrupting “super apps,” blocking cloud-streaming apps, suppressing messaging quality, limiting the functionality of third-party smartwatches, and blocking competing digital wallets. Apple plans to dismiss the case and disagrees with the defined market. The DOJ seeks to stop Apple from undermining cross-platform technologies and obtain relief to restore competition.
Also, in stories that made noise this week, OpenAI is expected to release GPT-5, a significant improvement over GPT-4, as early as this summer. GPT-5 is described as “materially better” and will offer impressive improvements, including the ability to interact with other AI programs. OpenAI is training the model and conducting red-team testing before its public release.
Why do we care?
I didn’t want to miss the tech consequences of geopolitics, as well as to note the impact on the Russian market. No, I don’t have a lot of listeners there – but it’s not zero, either. Broadly, however, my interest is in downstream effects and impacts.
The Apple case is newsworthy but not yet relevant to IT services. That’s going to take ages to become relevant. But I didn’t want to ignore it either, so now you’re informed.