BERLIN, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Microsoft will no longer offer German customers the option of using an extra-safe cloud computing service managed by a third-party trustee, the U.S. technology company announced in a blog post on Monday.
Markus Nitschke, product marketing manager at Microsoft, told the German press agency (dpa) that the decision reflected weaker than anticipated demand from Germany's traditionally security-conscious citizens. "The expectations of customers have change dramatically in the past three years", Nitschke said.
Back in 2015, Microsoft had reacted to the Snowden U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) revelations by building an isolated "German cloud" which would offer local customers greater data security. Bonn-based Deutsche Telekom acted as a trustee in the service which meant that Microsoft did not have access to any customer data itself.
According to Microsoft, however, users of the trustee cloud computing service complained about its limited functionality compared to the regular international service. As a consequence, the company will now focus exclusively on the latter globally-networked product for digital data storage, although the information of German customers will still be stored within the European Union (EU) in accordance with the bloc's laws.
Microsoft did not provide any information about the number of customers who purchased its trustee cloud computing services in Germany. The company said that it would continue to honor contractual agreements which remained valid for those who had done so in the past.
