That was my whole point. These services can all individually be provided by small businesses but there needs to be an overarching organization that links it all together and creates an abstraction people can use that centralizes billing, discovery and links everything together.

The EU government can provide that.

That would not only compete with Microsoft it could harness the power of small business/startup competition for the individual components which Microsoft can't do.

Japanese keiretsu are a good model to follow here. It was a network of small businesses each of whom held shares in related companies, centered around a bank that provided financing. It was responsible for Japan's economic miracle.

China also did something quite similar which is why they are absolutely dominant in electronics manufacturing.

The EU government doesn't appear willing to do anything like this though. I think they'd rather just get sweet talked by SAP into funneling taxpayer cash into their coffers.