Switzerland is yet another European country seeking ways to reduce its reliance on Microsoft products amid concerns about data security.
A spokesman for the Federal Chancellery told the local media that the federal administration “aims to reduce its dependency on Microsoft, step by step and in the long term,” Swiss Info reports.
Microsoft 365, a productivity suite, was recently installed on 54,000 Swiss federal administration workstations, despite concerns about data security, while proponents of alternatives were accused of “tinkering.”
Switching to open-source may also help save costs. An investigation by SRF revealed that the federal government and cantons spent approximately $1.4 billion on Microsoft licenses over the past ten years.
According to Swiss Info, Germany serves as a reference point for the idea that switching from Microsoft to open-source software is possible.
The country’s northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, has already replaced Microsoft with open-source alternatives in 80% of its state government workplaces.
An increasing number of European national and local governments switched from, or are planning to break up with, American technologies, with Microsoft among the companies most affected.
The French government just announced its plans to replace Microsoft’s Windows operating system with Linux on 2.5 million civil servants’ desktops, months after departments were ordered to substitute video-conferencing platforms with the homegrown platform Visio.
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Data security is a major concern for European governments and enterprises dependent on American technologies.
US laws, such as the 2018 Cloud Act, compel American companies to provide data requested by US law enforcement agencies, even if the data is stored on European servers and protected by EU laws.
Heightened political tensions under the Donald Trump administration also raise concerns that American technologies could be weaponized against Europeans.
The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) switched from Microsoft to European openDesk after ICC's Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan reportedly lost access to his email when he was sanctioned by the US for issuing an arrest warrant for Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
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