European Organizations and Their Cloud Journey

To understand where European cloud infrastructure needs to go, we must first understand where European organizations are today. The cloud adoption stories of European companies reveal both the transformative power of cloud computing and the urgent need for sovereign alternatives.

The Startup Perspective

Consider companies like 30MHz, which built IoT platforms for precision agriculture, or Quatt, developing smart heat pumps for the energy transition. These startups couldn't exist without cloud infrastructure. With teams of 3-4 developers, they serve hundreds of customers and manage thousands of devices.

These startups chose American cloud providers not out of preference but out of necessity. They needed:

• Instant scalability to handle growth
• Managed services to focus on their core product
• Global presence to serve international customers
• Pay-as-you-go pricing to manage cash flow

Enterprise Transformation

Large European enterprises tell a different story. Educational publisher Malmberg moved to AWS to achieve stability and focus on serving students rather than managing servers. When acquired by Sanoma Learning, this cloud-first approach spread across the organization.

Financial services platform Ohpen pioneered cloud adoption in the heavily regulated banking sector, proving that even the most compliance-heavy industries could benefit from cloud transformation.

Public Sector Challenges

Perhaps most telling is the story of SIDN, the organization managing the .nl domain. Even this critical piece of Dutch internet infrastructure is moving to AWS because the specialized services they need simply don't exist elsewhere.

Lessons for European Cloud

These stories teach us what European cloud infrastructure must provide:

1. Developer-First Design: If developers don't want to use it, organizations won't adopt it
2. Comprehensive Services: Basic infrastructure isn't enough—we need the full stack
3. Migration Paths: Organizations need clear paths from their current providers
4. Reliability at Scale: European providers must match hyperscaler reliability
5. Competitive Pricing: Sovereignty can't come at prohibitive cost

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