Swiss government is getting ready to replace Microsoft 365 with openDesk
Another blow to Microsoft.
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- Switzerland will test openDesk on 3,000 federal workstations before considering a wider Microsoft 365 replacement.
- Officials cite digital sovereignty, data protection, and rising Microsoft prices as reasons for the pilot.
- openDesk combines open-source, browser-based tools developed for public administrations by a German public enterprise.
- A 2026 Swiss study says openDesk cannot yet fully replace Microsoft 365 for all needs.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
The Swiss federal government has officially announced a pilot project to migrate from Microsoft 365 to openDesk as part of a larger digital sovereignty push.
The pilot, announced on September 4th, 2026, initially covers 3,000 workstations, representing approximately 7% of the federal administration's 54,000 positions.
The government allocated 9 million CHF ($11.1 million, €9.5 million) for the project, according to the Born City report, which Cybernews machine translated.
Implementation will begin in early 2027 and is scheduled to run until the end of the year.
The pilot was launched after a proof-of-concept test was successfully completed, in which 172 employees evaluated the practical suitability of the openDesk productivity suite.
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If the pilot proves that migration is scalable, the federal administration will replace Microsoft products across the entire administrative apparatus.
Switzerland’s Army’s Cyber Command, meanwhile, aims to implement openDesk across the board by October 2026.
Cutting costs, increasing sovereignty
By testing openDesk, the Swiss government aims to cut costs. Microsoft has been sharply raising prices for its office software in recent years, with the last change, announced in July 2026, adding 5-8% to Microsoft 365 list prices.
The switch, however, is primarily motivated by digital sovereignty and data protection considerations, as the Swiss government aims to cut its dependence on international cloud providers.
This reflects a broader trend in Europe, where increasingly strained relations with the Donald Trump administration have reignited the continent’s efforts to move away from American technologies.
US cloud providers are at the center of concerns, as 3 American giants – Amazon, Microsoft, and Google – control about 70% of the European market.
US laws, such as the 2018 Cloud Act, compel American companies to provide data requested by its law enforcement, raising concerns about the privacy of sensitive data.
Anton Carniaux, a legal director of Microsoft France, said that the company cannot guarantee that European user data is safe from US authorities while testifying before the French Senate in 2025.
What is openDesk?
Productivity suite openDesk is an open-source, browser-based technology that combines various software, primarily European-made, for different functions.
The software is developed by the Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration (ZenDiS), a German public enterprise that advises on reducing dependence on foreign tech.
Considered an alternative to Microsoft 365, the openDesk suite is increasingly adopted by sovereignty-conscious European governments and institutions.
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For example, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague switched to openDesk in 2025 after its Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Microsoft of disabling his email access following the US sanctions being imposed on him.
While Switzerland’s proof-of-concept test was successful, a 2026 study by Zurich’s Competence Center for Digitalization and the Bern University of Applied Sciences concluded that openDesk cannot yet fully replace Microsoft 365.
The study suggests that openDesk has limited functionality because it runs exclusively in a browser, but this could be compensated for by open-source software such as LibreOffice and Thunderbird.