The Swiss are moving away from reliance on Microsoft 365, citing ‘digital sovereignty’ concerns.
Federal authorities of the Swiss Confederation have launched a pilot program to ditch Microsoft 365 tools and embrace open source alternatives. The Federal Chancellery’s plan envisions investing 9 million Swiss francs (over US$11 million) to replace Redmond’s productivity software reportedly with the openDesk suite (from the German state-owned enterprise ZenDIS) on 3000 computers, as an initial step.
The Swiss armed forces were already moving away from reliance on proprietary software back in July 2026, with the aim of migrating wholly by October 2026.
The move is conducive to the Swiss government’s ‘Digital Switzerland Strategy, 2026’, announced in Bern less than a month after its Federal Council’s report on Swiss digital sovereignty. This stems from the introduction of the Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Governmental Tasks (EMBAG).
This puts the spotlight back on the recurring theme of European countries pursuing digital sovereignty, as witnessed earlier this year when the French government began turning their backs on Windows 10/11, instead favouring Linux distros.
Conversely, Microsoft is aware of these kinds of concerns, as reflected in the company’s ‘Sovereign Cloud’, which already focuses on data sovereignty. The platform “ensures customer data stays in Europe, under European Law — and encryption is under full control of customers,” but that has done little to sway the governments of Germany, France, and now Switzerland.
