Microsoft is the least trusted data storage provider — what can be done?

According to a survey carried out by a Swiss storage data provider, Microsoft is the least trusted player in the field. Almost a third (32 percent) of technology professionals questioned said that Microsoft was the brand they trusted the least when it came to data storage. It is suggested that trust is at a low ebb following the fallout from the NSA surveillance revelation which left many people wondering just who had access to their data. The survey found that other big names were also distrusted — 22 percent of people did not trust Apple, and 7 percent did not trust Dropbox.

Speaking to WinBeta, Artmotion explained it had spoken with hundreds of IT and technology professionals, posing the question “Following the NSA surveillance scandal, which brand do you trust the least?” A full report is expected to be published in the coming months, but the headline figures already make for intriguing reading.

As the survey performed by firm specializing in data storage in Switzerland, it should probably come as no surprise that the results are being used to highlight an increased interest in hosting data in Switzerland. Clearly this is a PR exercise by a particular firm, but it does raise some interesting questions.

Should Microsoft consider use Swiss datacenters to house OneDrive data? As Artmotion points out, “the only way to gain access to the data hosted within a Swiss datacenter is if the company receives an official court order proving guilt or liability”. Security is of the utmost importance to both companies and individuals, so the knowledge that files could not be accessed without solid reasoning would put many minds at rest.

Switzerland is a country famed for its banking history, and there is no reason why this should not extend to data. For many years The Pirate Bay operated from with Switzerland, successfully evading international law. If data could be locked away from the prying eyes of the US government and other international agencies, faith in cloud storage could be restored.

The move to the cloud is something that is now well underway, but it is only fairly recently that people are starting to take the security implications seriously. Microsoft already has a well-established user base for its various storage services, but a switch of focus to somewhere like Switzerland — where different laws apply — could help the company to reserve itself an even larger share of the market.