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Switzerland's Federal Government is Replacing Microsoft on 3,000 Computers
Switzerland's federal government has launched a pilot program to replace Microsoft 365 with open source alternatives across 3,000 workstations. That's about 7% of the federal workforce. The target is to complete the migration by end of 2027.
This move follows a successful proof-of-concept and a new digital sovereignty law. A separate fast-track military migration is also already underway.
Image source: RTS
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Neowin:
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Switzerland wants to ditch Microsoft 365, kicks off migration pilot
In the past, we have heard numerous stories about how countries in Europe are moving away from Microsoft's infrastructure in a bid for digital sovereignty from U.S. technology. Recent examples include France ditching Windows in favor of Linux, and Denmark dropping both Windows and Office. Now, it looks like Switzerland's government is planning to take the same route.
According to reports, Switzerland is migrating away from Microsoft 365 on 3,000 government PCs in a pilot program that aims to adopt and trial open-source alternatives. Prior to this, the Federal Chancellery of Switzerland carried out a proof-of-concept (PoC) experiment with 172 employees who tested the openDesk collaboration suite developed by Germany as an open-source alternative to Microsoft 365.
The results of this PoC indicate that some office tasks like document processing and email infrastructure were quite viable. However, it seems like there were technical hurdles in "large-scale video conferencing", currently powered by Teams.
Heise (Germany):
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Switzerland launches open-source workplace for 3,000 employees
The Federal Chancellery places the project within its strategy for digital sovereignty. Switzerland does not understand this term as complete independence from manufacturers or technologies. Rather, the administration aims to maintain its control and ability to act in the digital space and to systematically balance dependencies, data protection, information security, costs, and resilience against each other. The guidelines for digital sovereignty in the federal administration were adopted in December 2025 and have been binding for the central federal administration since January 2026.
An open-source workplace environment is intended to give the Confederation an additional option for action, for example, for critical workflows or in the event of disruptions to the standard environment. At the same time, the Federal Chancellery emphasizes that complete independence is not realistic in most cases. The platform now launched therefore initially serves as a limited, parallel expansion of the alternative tested in PoC BOSS.
The Register MS and SN:
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Switzerland Tests a FOSS Escape Route From Microsoft 365
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Switzerland tests a FOSS escape route from Microsoft 365
Switzerland's Federal Chancellery is preparing to offer a FOSS workplace suite to some 3,000 employees – but the Swiss Armed Forces are pushing ahead faster still.
European interest in digital sovereignty isn't limited to the European Union: the Swiss Federal Chancellery plans to offer selected government employees a FOSS alternative that will run alongside Microsoft 365. The chancellery is launching the program with an initial 3,000 staff, out of some 47,000 federal employees. The platform is expected to become available to about 3,000 selected employees from the end of 2027, with the first phase forecast to cost CHF 9 million (£8.2 million, $11.1 million). For comparison, Swiss Radio reported last year that the federal government had spent CHF 1.1 billion (£1 billion, $1.4 billion) on Microsoft licenses.
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TechRadar ☛ Swiss Federal Government is ditching Microsoft on thousands of devices to switch to open source
Switzerland's federal government has launched a pilot program to explore the feasibility of ditching Microsoft 365 in favour of open source alternatives, and it's starting with 3,000 machines of the government's estimated 54,000 total computers.
The government is looking to move around 7% of its machines away from M365 by the end of 2027, the chancellery confirmed, but it's not the first time the Swiss government has explored open-source alternatives.
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ZDNet ☛ Switzerland takes a Swiss Army knife to Microsoft 365
Switzerland’s federal government is moving to create an open-source, digitally sovereign workplace for thousands of employees, while the Swiss Armed Forces’ Cyber Command is moving much faster to replace Microsoft 365, especially for sensitive work.
They’re joining numerous other European government agencies, such as those in Austria, France, Germany, and Ireland, that are also cutting out Microsoft 365 and Windows in favor of open-source office suites and Linux.
After a feasibility study, the Swiss Federal Chancellery concluded that an open-source browser-based office suite could handle core administrative functions. So, it has started deploying an independently operated office-and-collaboration platform that will run in parallel with Microsoft 365. By the end of 2027, the government expects the platform to serve about 3,000 of its 47,000 employees involved in critical business processes across federal departments.
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PC Gamer ☛ Switzerland trials ditching Microsoft and using free and open-source software, available for 'around 3,000 employees' from the end of 2027
Microsoft has benefited from its services being used by many different governments and state agencies around the world. In many places, it's become ubiquitous. Some aren't happy about that, however, not least because it keeps you locked into an ecosystem that Microsoft can dictate the price for. As such, some states around Europe have been moving away from Microsoft services and towards open-source ones, and Switzerland now looks to be the latest in considering this.
The Federal Chancellery in Switzerland recently studied, as a proof-of-concept, whether it's feasible for its Federal Administration (part of the executive branch) to function with open-source software instead of Microsoft 365 and concluded yes, it can (via International Cyber Digest). As such, It's going to launch a follow-up program to trial it.
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IT Pro ☛ Switzerland edges away from Microsoft with OpenDesk trial
The Swiss government is running a trial of OpenDesk as part of efforts to reduce reliance on Microsoft software.
OpenDesk will be trialled for a small tranche of workers who focus on business critical functions. The move comes amid wider digital sovereignty efforts across Europe.
France, for example, has started to shift away from US software for government purposes while one German state has switched four out of five administration computers away from Microsoft.
The Swiss government said it plans to shift office computing to open source software, following a feasibility study that suggested the move should be possible.
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Computer World ☛ Swiss government explores replacing Microsoft 365 with open-source software
Swiss authorities have launched a pilot project to determine whether it is possible to replace Microsoft 365 with similar open-source services, RTS reports. This follows a proof-of-concept project in which 172 civil servants tested the German open-source platform openDesk.
According to Matthias Stürmer, a professor at the University of Bern, there are three main reasons for the switch: to reduce dependence on US services, to improve operational reliability, and to reduce costs.
In the first phase, the migration involves 3,000 computers, which corresponds to 7% of Switzerland’s federal workforce. The government has more than 54,000 workstations in
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Switzerland challenges Microsoft 365 with openDesk on 3,000 PCs
The Swiss Confederation has switched on a 3,000-seat pilot to replace Microsoft 365 with open source software inside the federal administration. The project is called BOSS, costs roughly CHF 9 million in its first phase, and aims to wrap up the migration by the end of 2027. Microsoft isn't disappearing overnight. openDesk becomes the first public-sector workspace running on open code, alongside the American suite.
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TechSpot ☛ Switzerland is paying $11 million to stop using Outlook and Teams
Switzerland is joining a growing list of European countries that no longer want to do business with Microsoft and other US IT giants. The federal government has already begun ditching Microsoft's productivity tools in favor of open-source alternatives, and the country's military authorities are moving even faster with the transition.
Federal authorities of the Swiss Confederation recently launched a pilot program to replace Microsoft 365 tools with open-source alternatives. The Federal Chancellery's plan calls for investing 9 million Swiss francs (more than $11 million) to replace Redmond's productivity software with the openDesk suite on 3,000 machines, but it could eventually expand to a significantly larger number of workstations used by federal employees.
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Switzerland is testing an open-source alternative to Microsoft 365
The Swiss Federal Administration is opening a new chapter in its quest for greater digital independence. After completing a feasibility study, the Federal Administration has estimated that it can also provide key office functions with open source software. The next step will be quite concrete. By the end of 2027, around 3,000 employees are expected to use the new sovereign working environment.
This is not a sudden abandonment of Microsoft 365. Quite the opposite. Switzerland has completed the rollout of Microsoft 365 in around 54,000 federal administration workplaces in December 2025. Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft services will remain its standard. The new project is primarily an attempt to reduce long-term dependence on a single provider and to create an alternative for cases where greater control over software and data is particularly important.
MUO:
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The biggest Linux migration happening right now is a 30,000-PC escape from Microsoft
When I hear a government talk about ditching Microsoft for Linux, I'm usually prepared for the same sequence: a press conference, a few years elapse, and then somehow things get reversed without anyone really covering it. This was the pattern in Munich with LiMux.
Naturally, it's the exact sequel that I expected when Schleswig-Holstein announced in 2024 that it would move a workforce of roughly 30,000 away from Windows. But this turned out to be different because, years before the Linux rollout began, the state had already started removing Microsoft dependencies from the software and services surrounding the desktop. It's what getting off a subscription that's hard to live should look like.