This isn’t really newsworthy anymore - European governments are all moving towards digital sovereignty for stuff like this, which makes sense. Microsoft will most likely start offering “host your own” cloud versions of these products soon to try and stop/slow the exodus, as controlling your own data becomes more and more important to governments and companies.
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
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Lol, I don't know of that's intentional shade but that photo is of my hometown (Lübeck), which is in the state (SH) but not the capital. So they didn't find a photo from capital (Kiel) they that was aesthetically pleasing enough to accompany the article?
Great. People need to detach from the American mindset.
Kudos to Germany for pulling it off. Was also happy to see them mention
Last year [...] the government began rolling out LibreOffice as the default office suite to replace Microsoft Office.
It's one German state. Nevertheless, better than none. Sadly, for instance, Munich moved away from Linux to Microsoft in 2017 (end of project limux). Did I mention Microsoft has a location there?
Earlier switches were primarily about cost-savings, so Microsoft would just swoop in with discounts and backroom deal$, or offer discounts to anyone considering copy-catting, isolating the early-adopters.
This case is not about cost but data sovereignty, and it's also a smaller switch (keeping the Windows OS), so we can have hopes for better success.
Monopoly always wins.
Did you know horses were the only way to move around before cars?
Did you know the US airline industry, and AT&T phone system were a monopoly situation?
Do you remember when Dropbox, Docker were the only product that filled their niche spot?
So, no, monopoly does not always win.
Well, we have like 3 decades at most of this kind of tech, and really only a couple of generations modern capitalism, so it's a bit tough to say "always" about anything. It would be more accurate, historically, to say that the monarchy always wins - but especially in that case - past performance does not guarantee future returns.
Hopefully with the political climate governments will be more resilient and care about digital sovereignty
As much as I would love that, will never happen.
Either way we've got to try, there is a slow shift happening in that direction, and the more that shift the easier it becomes
Unfortunately, it is only 1 out of 16 states.
It is first step. If it will work well, maybe other states will do it.
It will work fine. Email is simple. I've administered dozens in my career, it will be just fine.
Well, other states did switch before but then went back. We'll have to see. I welcome this step, if it continues.
Nope, one municipality switched, this is a whole state.
Just hope Microsoft doesn't move their German headquarters to Kiel for "unrelated reasons"...
True, lol
Bavarians: *deep breathing
Got to start somewhere, if a few do it it shows it's possible
For the remaining 15, they’ll just stick to their fax machines.
I lol’d