Over 170k Nonprofits Lost All Their Data. Is Microsoft to Blame?
slate.com56 points by tchalla 2 hours ago
56 points by tchalla 2 hours ago
Yep, this is the sort of thing happens when you've deeply internalized that trustworthiness and continuity is not important. Microsoft today is not a serious company, it is not run by serious people, and it is at the forefront of a deeply unserious industry.
Microsoft is serious because the world is full of people with needs who do not know better and Microsoft is still the default to serve those needs.
Something does not have to be useful, benign, consistent, worthwhile, or deserving to exist in order to be serious.
For example: Losing an arm and an eye to a fireworks accident, being grievously assaulted in an alley, or having Microsoft arbitrarily delete all your data, are all very serious things. So, I think it is fair to say Microsoft can still be called serious.
I'm a tenant admin for a non profit. Just looked and I have 8 emails to two different addresses warning me about the transition.
None were caught in the Microsoft or Fastmail spam filters.
Cloud is nice if it works. Web hosting is nice if you pay for it.
In history timeline, future archaeologists will probably see almost nothing, some books… as we are used to past centuries. But clouds, servers… gone.
BTW don’t use SSD for archiving.
Never keep your data and your backups in the same place. That’s true for in-office servers, data-centres and cloud. If you must use cloud, use two different providers for your own services and backups.
Also, have a disaster recovery plan ready, and exercise it regularly.
Did Microsoft give fair warning of what was going to happen to the data in the cloud that was stored there under these licenses? (I don't have a Slate account so I can't read the full article to see if this is addressed.)
Yes. Disclosure: I work at Microsoft. But I also am the volunteer IT guy at a nonprofit, and am speaking entirely in that context.
I was quite unhappy to get a mail back in (checks archives) January that our grant would be discontinued and we’d either have to make do with the web versions of things, migrate someplace, or start paying. They also reminded us several more times before the drop date. I don’t really understand why Microsoft chose to discontinue the nonprofit grants, and it put a little egg on my face after I had recommended it to our board — but they definitely notified us of the change and what it would mean.
We’ve opted to pay for now; it’s $3/user/month for the SKU that gets full desktop versions of Office, Teams, etc. so not really breaking the bank compared to all the other things we have to pay for.
If 150,000+ organisations were caught by surprise, I would say it’s clear whatever communication they had was not adequate.
Organisations that didn’t have an off-boarding option (do nothing, pay the minimum, I’ll deal with it) selected should receive monthly reminders, then every 2 weeks (to multiple people), and one per week until a VERY alarming one the week before. And, of course, have all systems shut down and the data archived for a grace period.
I hope they sue Microsoft for what seems neglect.
> What happened to Khosla was just one instance of a crisis that has rocked small nonprofit owners across the globe, who allege that Microsoft failed to communicate with them in a substantive manner about the license cancellations and left them unable to prepare their organizations for the future. As they’ve related online, these already resource-strapped nonprofits have lost troves of data, are struggling to continue their operations, and have been left unable to make up the technology gaps with alternative services. People who run service orgs with low budgets and benefited for years from Microsoft’s programs no longer have much of the technology they need to keep things going—for either the short or long term.
This quote contains linked sources but I can't see them since they're largely on Reddit and Facebook. The Microsoft ones suggest people were blindsided by this cancellation, and that the official support channels in Microsoft are broken. It seems like everyone who was blindsided also tried to submit an official support ticket and was unable to, which is in line with my experience interacting with Microsoft.
> the official support channels in Microsoft are broken
I can say, from first hand experience, the very best cloud providers have support channels that are, at the very least, unpleasant to use.
The second paragraph of the email:
We strongly advise transitioning your users to a different Microsoft 365 offer for nonprofits, before the subscription is cancelled, to avoid disruption and data loss. Connect now with your current Microsoft partner – or find a partner – to get started. Learn more about what happens to your data and access when your subscription ends.
That last sentence links to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/commerce/sub...
Yes :)
But really depends. I saw somewhere NPR lost 70 years of content doe to a Cloud bill not being paid on time or something ? I forgot the details.
I am sure there will be more of this since companies are depending on the Cloud for their data storage. Now with AI, who knows what will happen. I expect Cloud Admin people will eventually be replaced by some AI type system.
Companies really should backup all data and send off-site. But that will never happen because god-forbid, they will need to hire a real person.
Nine PBS (PBS member station) lost 50tb/70 years of archives due to cloud provider ending operations abruptly
They lost data because of their incompetence and not actually having any backups.
False: they did not lose the data; they temporarily lost access to it, because of Iron Mountain's security policies. They are, necessarily, pursuing remedies in court. They can and will regain access.
For more info:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49285418 - "Nine PBS sues Iron Mountain over blocked access to archival data" - 229 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333344 - "Judge sets framework for Nine PBS to retrieve archival data" - 75 comments
People are better off using LibreOffice on a Linux desktop
As a daily Linux user and enthusiast, I detest statements like this. You did not read the article not the problem that those companies have and your only solution is "Use LibreOffice" without any actual interest in what their problem is or what an actual solution to their problems is. People like you push newbies away from Linux.
Using LibreOffice does not give you web sharing, nor permission systems, nor automation workflows, nor easy to use access controls, nor so many other things.