Comment by plqbfbv

> the same can be provided by a local provider that also has the ability to deal with large DDOS and cap off the outside when it comes down to the wire

Local providers often can be 2-3x to 10x+ expensive compared to hyperscalers for the same featureset. If you're willing to compromise on features, you can get down to 2x but with basically vendor lock-in and Swiss German support (!= German - which in Switzerland can fly if you're a medium-small company, but if you want to attract talent you'll need also English). I'm not sure there's any local provider capable of mitigating large-scale DDOS either.

Hyperscalers understood the need for local presence despite being located right across the border and in EU (Germany, Italy, France): Azure, AWS and Google all opened up locations in Switzerland in the past 3-4 years.

Basically every medium/big Swiss client I've worked for was or is still in the process of migrating away from local providers (even the big-S one) due to costs. Add to that that most companies use some form of AD and most were already using Outlook or the Office suite, you can integrate everything with less costs via Azure. If you are a big company and have multiple locations all over the world, you anyway also need hyperscalers to allow the team in Spain, US or India to interact with familiar tools.

EDIT: replying to the "local services, local tools" part: I wouldn't like to be stranded at 2am in Zurich kanton in some god-forgotten town I went to exactly once, because the SBB app relies on a local provider which has a small team of on-call people that still need to wake up. There's also people interacting with government services at all times, I've seen logs of people trying to access apps at 3:30 in the night. While I can agree it can be fixed the next morning, the question becomes: why spend more for the lesser choice?