Following Amazon announcement to install data centers in France, it is now Microsoft’s turn to announce that it has decided to offer its cloud services from French data centers next year. A smart move to reassure its local business customers who are not always very enthusiast when it comes to host their data out of France.

Like other Cloud leaders, Microsoft wants its cloud factories on French territory. Starting next year, the Redmond Company will offer its cloud services (messaging, application management) from multiple data centers based in France. France will become the fifth European country where Microsoft houses its data servers and applications for its European customers.

Microsoft data centers are already established in Ireland and in the Netherlands. But because these investments are very expensive, the American publisher has also established partnerships to use existing local providers of data centers such as the German T-Systems (a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom operator).

“This new Microsoft cloud based in France will offer the same high standards of performance and reliability that customers expect worldwide, combined with the location of data in France to ease the digital transformation of French businesses and organizations” said Vahé Torossian, president of Microsoft France.

Torossian makes a direct reference to the reluctance of many businesses or public administrations to store the data of their employees and customers outside France. Not to mention that in areas such as public health, it is mandatory to host confidential digital data of patients in France. Furthermore, European companies all remember the decision of an US judge in 2014 forcing Microsoft to reveal the content of electronic messages stored in its data center in Dublin, in the name of the Patriot Act.

Others like Salesforce, the US publisher of business management software, has selected the data center of its French partner Interxion to offer local companies the possibility to have their data stored in France. With the growth of Cloud storage and Cloud applications, datacenters are more than ever a critical issue for IT companies. Many announcements have been made this last weeks with US giants like Facebook and Dropbox setting up datacenters in Europe as well as the Chinese AliCloud which recently reaffirmed its will to expand its business in the old continent.