After ditching Microsoft 365, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein is switching to Linux
Over 200 state employees now work with Linux.
Image by Iamadhithia via Shutterstock/Cybernews
- Schleswig-Holstein is moving its state chancellery workstations from Windows to Linux.
- More than 200 chancellery employees already use Linux; 20 Windows machines remain for specialized apps.
- The state earlier replaced Microsoft 365 with LibreOffice in nearly 80% of government workplaces.
- Germany and France are pursuing open-source tools to reduce reliance on American technology providers.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
The state of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s pioneer in digital sovereignty, is now migrating the chancellery’s workstations from Windows to Linux.
The northernmost German state made headlines in 2025 for replacing Microsoft's productivity suite with LibreOffice, an open-source European alternative, in nearly 80% of workplaces in the state government.
The move was estimated to save the state approximately €15 million ($17.5 million) annually.
A year later, with an increasing number of European federal and local governments following in Schleswig-Holstein’s footsteps, the state is once again leading the way towards digital sovereignty.
This time, the state chancellery is switching from Microsoft Windows to Linux, according to a Schleswig-Holsteinischer Zeitungsverlag report, which Cybernews machine-translated.
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More than 200 employees at the chancellery are already working with Linux, while 20 workstations still run on Windows due to “technical dependencies” in certain specialized administrative applications.
“But we are working on that too,” says Dirk Schrödter, the head of the chancellery and state minister of digitalization.
Germany is one of the leaders in reducing its reliance on American technologies, as European capitals are under increasing pressure from the Donald Trump administration.
For instance, all public sector documents in Germany will soon be required to be issued only in open formats, such as the Open Document Format (ODF), excluding proprietary alternatives like Microsoft Word.
While Microsoft 365 remains the major target in the European sovereignty bid, countries are also actively exploring alternatives to Windows.
The French government is committed to replacing Windows with Linux across 2.5 million civil servants’ workstations, although the exact timeline remains unknown.