In a session earlier today the deployment of a tool was discussed in an organisation’s information environment that is otherwise fully dominated by Microsoft products. After a presentation a director asked “if we add this tool to our (Microsoft) mix, aren’t we working in opposition to our wish for more digital autonomy and digital sovereignty”? The answer was “well you are already using Microsoft tools everywhere so sourcing this one tool from someplace else won’t change your autonomy in any way.”

I disagree. This is the pitfall of “it’s only worth changing if we can get from here to a mythical ideal situation in a single easy step, otherwise we’ll stay put”.
Indeed, opting to source a single tool outside of the walled garden you’re in does not change anything about you being in that walled garden as such. But adding a tool within the walled garden does make it harder still to leave that walled garden in the future. It increases your cost of leaving once more.

You have to begin somewhere if you want to move out of monopolies under foreign jurisdiction outside your democratic control, that can determine what’s on your screen and in your inboxes. Not adding to the problem is one step easily made, because it does not require you to change anything in your current way of working, just to apply different decision criteria upfront when adding something.