For many years, I have worked mainly in Microsoft environments.

Windows Server, Active Directory, Microsoft 365, remote desktops, email and support. That world has been a large part of my daily work. And it still is.

Microsoft technologies are practical, familiar and widely used. For many small and medium-sized businesses they simply get the job done.

But over the past few years, something has started to shift in the way I look at IT. Not because I suddenly became anti-Microsoft. Not because one of their products became bad overnight. And not because I think every business should immediately move away from large technology platforms.

It is more subtle than that.

When convenience becomes dependency

I increasingly see how easily convenience is turning into dependency.

A company starts with email, file storage and collaboration tools in the cloud. Then identity, security, device management, backups, telephony and business processes are added to the same ecosystem, and at last AI is integrated.

At first, that feels efficient. But over time, the question becomes more important: how much control does the company still have over their own infrastructure, processes and data?

  • Do you know where your data is?
  • Can you move away if needed?
  • Are your backups really independent?
  • Do you understand which suppliers your business depends on?
  • Can you still make your own choices, or are you mostly following the defaults of a large platform?

What digital sovereignty means to me

This is what digital sovereignty means to me.

Not a political slogan. Not a rejection of modern IT. But a practical question:

Does your business still have control over its own digital environment?

That is why open source, Linux and independent infrastructure are becoming increasingly important to me and in my work.

Not because open source is automatically better. It still needs knowledge, maintenance, security and monitoring.

But it often gives back something many businesses have slowly lost: transparency, portability and control:

You can understand how systems work.
You can move them.
You can build on open standards.
You are not always forced into one commercial ecosystem.

Still working with Microsoft, but differently

This does not mean I am turning my back on Microsoft. That would not be realistic, and it would not help many of my clients either.

Microsoft will remain part of many business environments. In many cases, it is still the most practical choice.

But I no longer believe that every IT question should automatically lead to another Microsoft license, another cloud service or another dependency inside the same ecosystem.

Sometimes the right answer is Microsoft or Apple, sometimes it is Linux, sometimes it is open source and sometimes it is a hybrid approach.

The important part is that the choice is made consciously.

Practical, secure and less dependent

I want to help businesses build IT environments that are practical, secure and less dependent on a single vendor.

Step by step.

That is also what I want to write about on this blog: real examples from daily IT practice, explained in a clear and accessible way.

Small things that show bigger patterns.

A browser that keeps pushing itself forward.
A cloud setting that changes without much notice.
A backup that depends on the same account it is supposed to protect.
A simple business process that suddenly stops working because a platform changed its rules.

These are not just technical details.

They are signs of a bigger question:

Who is actually in control?

That is the direction I am exploring, both in my work and in this blog.

Because IT should not only be convenient.

It should also remain understandable, controllable and yours.