10 ms·

Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers

371 points by ivell 10d ago

ares623 10d ago
Do migrations like this get easier each time? With prior art being available, and an ecosystem and pipeline starts to form around the new norm.
- com 10d ago
  With a couple of exceptions, my guess is that these migrations are part of the commercial negotiation pack of government procurement agencies. At a certain point I’d expect that tech sovereignty concerns will tip while governments out of the US-vendor mindset.
  - walrus01 9d ago
    As exemplified by a major project recently started by the French government: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windows-from-government-computers-in-sovereignty-push https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windo... https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditched-windows-11-for-linux-on-2-5-million-government-pcs-heres-why-microsoft-should-worry-that-millions-more-could-follow-by-the-end-of-2026 https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditch...
  - phorkyas82 9d ago
    I'd guess the hurdles are always more structural and organizational - as even with Microsoft stack itself. See for instance the Limux/Munic story: https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/ https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/
- LaurensBER 9d ago
  The biggest challenge with these kind of migrations is training users, especially government employees. Switzerland is relatively highly educated so this might be less of a challenge than in other countries but it won't be easy. The technical part is probably relatively easy in comparison. Especially because the stakes are low (parallel run with the existing system, good will from everyone involved).
  - ur-whale 9d ago
    > Switzerland is relatively highly educated so this might be less of a challenge than in other countries but it won't be easy. True, but that's not accounting for a bunch of typically Swiss cultural factors: - Swiss people tend to love to death the "one standard solution for one particular problem" approach - Swiss people tend to be quite change-averse relative to other nearby cultures. Don't get me wrong I love the Swiss to death, and the above cultural biases actually have their advantages, but re-training government employees is not going to be easy, however well educated they may be. Fortunately, there is another cultural Swiss bias that's going to help: most large Swiss organizations have been designed using the army as a model, which mean Swiss employees tend to obey orders quite well. So if the mandate comes from the top, it'll likely succeed. Eventually. Cause in Switzerland, they tend to take their time (yeah, that's another base cultural cliché, but I couldn't resist. And we're already deep into those already, why stop :-) ).
    - tribaal 9d ago
      As a Swiss I'm a little surprised about your points: 1. We have a wide, per-canton range of solutions for everything even up to school system or tax software. Almost nothing is the same everywhere in the country (not even mentality...) 2. I am quite surprised about the "chage adverse" comment as well, except maybe in rural/conservative villages, people are on the contrary quite forward looking. Our economy is regularly listed as the most competitive in the world. How can competitive economy exist if nothing ever changes? Where does your impression come from? 3. My wife works in the Swiss government and uses a linux desktop at home...
      - LaurensBER 6d ago
        Amen, I've worked in a few European countries and (outside the big companies and banks) the Swiss love to poke around and experiment. They do have a tendency to complain (but so do a lot of Europeans) but that complaining does often translate into action (something, seemingly, a lot less common in the south of Europe) so perhaps that gives outsiders the impression that the Swiss are change adverse?
  - 9d ago
- izacus 9d ago
  Not really - this is akin to doing a complete rewrite of your 30 year old codebase to Rust. Every organization has their own hacks, bespoke tools, processes and hardware that has to be painstakingly replaced, reprogrammed and users retrained. In many cases, Linux alternatives don't exist so they either have to be written or processes/hardware replaced. These are OLD organizations and none of them is really the same as any other. Legendarily, companies like SAP made their whole fortunes managing this kind of complexity. It's just a lot of work with a lot of edge cases you've never thought of (or seen in your life) that takes years.
mikaTheThird 9d ago
Not sure about goverment requirements, but many apps I use nowadays are on the web, Figma, Canva, google docs, outlook and so on. There is not much need for a dedicated OS for most users.
- rrr_oh_man 9d ago
  SAP, Oracle, weird Office macros from decades ago …
  - LtWorf 9d ago
    They might know their own use case better than you and I?
    - Cipater 9d ago
      Their comment said "most users".
      - rrr_oh_man 9d ago
        I don’t know what’s going these days. Users seem to have become much more combative, yet shorter in attention span and shallower in understanding
- pitchlatte 9d ago
  the browser is definitely becoming more OS-like. that’s the Chromebook bet. but for proper office work you need good file management. if they’re not keen on trusting cloudy solutions by the big corps then FOSS on bare metal is the way to go.
rich_sasha 9d ago
The real risk to MS here is when people take the plunge and see how much nicer a (well supported, well put together) Linux distro is, compared to Windows etc! Will they want to buy their next laptop at home with MSFT installed? Plus, if countries moving off Microsoft put a fraction of the savings into libre office product development, it might get an even more lopsided comparison!
- pjmlp 9d ago
  Yes, because when they go to Media Market and FNAC they will only have macOS and Windows laptops to chose from. Having Tuxedo, System76 and co is great, but what most people care about is what there are in regular consumer shops. Linux adoption among consumer hardware has only been a success where it is invisible to the user, like the Linux kernel on Android or WebOS, firmware on DVD/BlueRay players,...
  - LtWorf 9d ago
    Stores are dead to anyone who is under 35 years of age.
    - embedding-shape 9d ago
      You might want to contact Media Markt, FNAC, Corte Ingles and all the other stores to tell them apparently they have 0 customers yet they pay for rent, salaries and everything else even though no one goes there anymore.
      - repelsteeltje 9d ago
        Add CoolBlue (Netherlands) to that list. Initially a post order-only for consumer electronics, but added bricks & mortar stores because many customers (of all ages, btw) prefer IRL service, viewing and touching actual hardware.
        guenthert 9d ago
red_admiral 9d ago
Office is going to be a blocker - not just because of the two XML file formats, but because of the different UI. I personally find the Microsoft version more productive despite a mental list of complaints I have with it. The correct choice, in my opinion, would be to invest in a new EU_Office project that uses the Microsoft XML formats. If you're trying to run your government on a new platform, that would also be a hedge against TDF pulling in a direction you don't want: an "independent self-governing meritocratic entity" has possible failure modes that need to go on the risk register.
- discordance 9d ago
  I have been having some fun lately with some extra tokens from my work, experimenting with setting it loose on replicating software. The results have been pretty surprisingly good. There’s a lot of functionality missing on first use, but I think if I let it churn through a few million more tokens it could get close. I would be very concerned if I were a MS, SaaS or Adobe about what’s to come in the near future.
- p2detar 9d ago
  That‘s an interesting thought, because I see openDesk packs Collabora for document-editing, I‘ve never ever tried it. Does anyone know how it fairs with file-formats and MS-formatting in general?
- 3RTB297 9d ago
  Office is very much not a problem. LibreOffice has UI plugins that arrange everything in a standard Office pre-365 layout. I've been using it for years and I can't recall a single time I've ran into any issues. I think Excel macros are where the start of dealbreakers begin, which is a niche issue. 90+% of Office users won't hit that wall. Second, the EU has been pouring money into an OpenOffice fork for official use and replacement of Office 365 for a while. https://office.eu/ https://office.eu/
  - alkonaut 9d ago
    The 10% excel sheets are exactly the problem. You can replace 90% or even 99% with either some online simpler office suite or none at all. But it will turn out there are business critical things running in 2003 format excel sheets with macros and if anything stops working then the organization stops working. The person who made these sheets and macros has retired 20 years ago and "updating it" would require making a dozen little applications to replace them which would be a huge task. The simple/cheap answer I think is to just keep the power users and legacy systems on the tools they need/want. Because that's where the pain point is that cause these projects to fail. If you aim for 100% you'll end up with 0% eventually. If you aim for 90%, you can do it. But Microsoft know this, and would make sure that a 90% migration saves you much less than a 100% migration. Which is why this is so rare still. (I think the number is probably 99% not 90%, but the point is the same)
sajithdilshan 9d ago
I’m always surprised to see how naive people are when comparing the enterprise/government usage of software vs. Personal usage. Linux and open source software are a good alternative for personal usage, but for government usage, wouldn’t they have to port every custom software they have built over decades to Linux? Not to mention driver support for legacy/custom hardware. Also, from where would they get the support and guarantee that critical bugs and issues are patched and distributed without disruption to every single computer in time? Replacing MS office would be the easiest and what’s the point of migrating away from MS Office while still using Windows eco system? Is it just political symbolic migration because they don’t have anything better to do with tax payers money?
- lifestyleguru 9d ago
  Custom software they have build over decades is pile of crap. Mostly could be replaced with web interface, gpg encryption, and batch processing of CSV files with bash or python. It will fail because employees want "mouse point and click", "mouse point and double click" interfaces and are unable to use anything else.
- thefz 9d ago
  > but for government usage, wouldn’t they have to port every custom software they have built over decades to Linux? Maybe not the case for everyone, but this has been the reason for making as much in-house software as possible behind a web frontend.
- flippingheck 9d ago
  The greater the dependence, the greater the risk.
- p2detar 9d ago
  Porting software nowadays might prove easier than expected. Exactly how much custom software should one expect? Centralized web applications running on Java are probably the standard anyway, and they are not OS-dependent. The point of migration seems to be data-storage compliance anyway. They can later migrate off Windows easily once openDesk gets them going.
- 9d ago
KellyCriterion 9d ago
How many of ALL/total government employees are these 3k computers?
- kovariantenkak 9d ago
  > This is the pilot phase, with 3,000 workstations moving away from Microsoft 365. The federal administration has over 54,000 computers. If only the title had a subtitle or even a full article to provide more information.
  - wongarsu 9d ago
    Also further down "If the pilot is successful, we might expect the migration to continue on all the 54,000 workstations owned by the federal administrations. That's my guess". So in the estimate of the author we can expect this to be phase 2 of a three-phase rollout
arjie 9d ago
“Sovereign” is a good brand. Sovereign AI, Sovereign Office Suite (as opendesk bills itself). All a reaction to Trump? Or longer term disentangling?
- embedding-shape 9d ago
  There been work in this direction for multiple decades already, but up until the confirmation that Trump won his second election, things weren't happening that quickly. Since then though, the steam train been all aboard and everyone and their mother is currently trying to reduce US dependency in pretty much every way they can.
  - ivell 9d ago
    One key distinction is the permanancy of Trumpism. The fact that existing controls in the US government cannot stop the extreme Trump actions, and in fact for many cases are explicitly supporting, gave a clear message to other governments that the risk is real, permanent and needs de-risking. Overall Trump is a stress test on the world and found many defects that is slowly getting fixes.
Atariman 9d ago
As a Swiss, I'm happy they finally try it. It's only around 5% of all government machines, but at least it's a start and I wish them all the best! We have to get independent asap from the US, they never were our (or any other countries) "friends" and most likely never will be. OSS ftw!
- mrits 9d ago
  [flagged]
  - Atariman 9d ago
    We were neutral, but it's always funny how many US-guys always bring up WW2. That was maybe the last time, the US did anything "good" for the world. But yeah, I think it's useless to argue with you.
    - embedding-shape 9d ago
      WW2 was long enough ago that no one you end up talking about it actually experienced it themselves, but it's recent enough that people who felt their country did "Good", can still ride that high wave without being pulled down by everything that came after.
      - palata 9d ago
        What? My grandmother experienced it herself, she saw bombings.
        embedding-shape 9d ago
        Right, I didn't mean "Everyone who was alive during WW2 is today dead", that's obviously not true, it was just 80 years ago or so. What I meant was that most people who discuss WW2 with others online, mostly talk from the perspective of not having experienced the war themselves, nor did the person who they speak to, most likely.
alkonaut 9d ago
The long tail of ms Excel does not get replaced easily. For 90% of customers and 90% of workflows you see either no use of a program, or use cases that can be replaced with anything. But eventually you'll find the power users who do business critical stuff in excel sheets that you notice can't be done in any other way, and if you stop doing it then people aren't paid in time or whatever. This doesn't mean it's a good idea to not try this. But Microsoft also aren't dumb. They know exactly how common this is, and what fraction this is. And they will make sure that it costs little more to keep the Microsoft products across the org, than it costs to keep them for specific users and deal with the mess that happens. This could be said for other things than Excel, but Excel has been one of those moats for decades now.
- 72deluxe 9d ago
  But the general usage of Excel is so negligible in terms of using its actual features that it can be easily replaced. In my experience, non-basic formulas are beyond 99% of people and they use it simply for adding stuff up in a grid. This is why Google Sheets is used in many places as a replacement (even if it balloons RAM usage when presented with a large sheet of data), simply because all of the wonderful features of Excel are unused. The most complex operation some people do seems to be lookup tables.
  - jiggawatts 9d ago
    Even casual users utilise more than 10% of the features. The problem is that they all utilise a different 10%.
- GoblinSlayer 9d ago
  >But eventually you'll find the power users who do business critical stuff in excel sheets that you notice can't be done in any other way What can't be done in any other way?
  - alkonaut 5d ago
    Whatever is in those Excel sheets. In any nontrivial org, you'll find it if you try. We found users designing roof trusses in Excel with heavy vbscript macros...
hacker_homie 9d ago
When it finally is the year of the linux desktop, what are we going to do about malware on linux?
- embedding-shape 9d ago
  I'm not sure neither Microsoft, Apple, LG nor Sony is interested in developing software nor drivers for Linux so I think we're pretty safe on that front.
fpauser 9d ago
Clever move.
theplumber 9d ago
A Mac studio ultra with linux is the best computer I ever had. The only small thing that I miss is the copy/paste from iphone to the computer sync. It seems to me really that there is no going back to macOS any time soon. I don’t think I would still be able to “compute” on Windows.
- jonny-puma 9d ago
  I've got great news for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49415386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49415386
- wateralien 9d ago
  > I miss is the copy/paste from iphone to the computer sync Such a key feature and probably the one thing that keeps me locked into the Apple ecosystem
  - trueno 8d ago
    it like stopped working for me this week no idea why
- constantius 9d ago
  KDE Connect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45557599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45557599
hn_submit 9d ago
Why don't they replace Windows with Linux Mint? That would be much more groundbreaking than simply replacing online Office and Outlook. If you use Linux Mint you can replace Office with LibreOffice (offline) and Outlook with one of the many email clients available for Linux.
- tecleandor 9d ago
  There are at least a couple or three things around that... - One, that probably, for most of the users, what's is locking them to Windows is a bunch of Microsoft applications. Once you've moved out of those apps, you're free to move them to any other OS. - Two, on government computers there are usually a bunch of things that might be a bit custom and not readily available in other OSes. Smart card readers for weird standards, custom software for security or administration processes, uncommon peripherals... - Three, there are departments that are going to be tied to Windows for a long time, due to very specific software, for example CAD or things like that So I'd say Office is a big and easier win that could allow later allow to move a lot of workstations to Linux. Then, you can focus on the other less common uses of Windows and see how feasible is migrating them. But starting directly moving to Linux would mean starting directly with edge cases and problems.
- IslandRebel 9d ago
  Because IT often doesn't know how / doesn't want to deal with Linux installations. Also Linux Mint isn't community supported. Large corporations and governments like to have operating systems with long support cycles. That why RHEL has like 10 year support cycles.
- palata 9d ago
  They consistently choose to depend more and more on the US (see the latest military developments). I'm already surprised they would even consider an alternative to MS365.
- timbit42 9d ago
  It's easier to replace apps with ones that are available on both Windows and Linux, then later switch to Linux.
Incipient 9d ago
Having a core system be entirely dependent on a foreign entity seems silly when there is a very viable alternative (which also saves a lot on licensing). I say VIABLE not equivalent. Linux is a lot rougher, and the change management process will be brutal. Retooling an entire department/etc to use whatever Linux has instead of entra/intune for device management will also be complex/incomplete/a learning curve. TLDR: any govt would be crazy not to at least trial it, and see if it works.
sylware 9d ago
They have to keep in mind: it will be more expensive (significantly, and in competent people, not only $$$) as you cannot beat big tech with their thousands of billions of $ and the fact they are scaled on a worldwide scope. And with a long term perspective, it is going to be even harder and more 'expensive': being independent and small has a price. Just do not go on the ground of their "complexity", if you do, you are done for, going to be hell (specs subset only of file formats/protocols, and/or very simple alternative file formats/protocols, think docx vs utf8 text file). And you better work on those technical regulations, and it is hard since it must not imped real and pertinent "progress".
monssooon 9d ago
It is sad that EU and USA are falling away from eachother. IMO we should try and stick together in these times. No doubt the US has financed a lot of things for te entire world and no doubt the European countries have put in a lot of effort too. I don't think we should argue over it. We have issues with privacy rights, elder burden, geopolitical turmoil, growing debt burden, environment and so on in all places we need to look forward and stick together...
- dmantis 9d ago
  What's wrong with having more sovereignty over your data and infrastructure? You don't need to stop working on the mentioned issues together but cutting foreign spies the access to your citizens data and reducing their leverage. That's life, spies going to spy, state psychopaths from the military and the three-latter agencies exist regardless whether you see them or not and they don't care about the "common good". They must be taken into the account. The less power humans have over each other - the better. Instead of pressuring each other to bring profits people would be able to speak like equals.
- cthulberg 9d ago
  I don't think it's a matter of "US-hate," of renewed nationalism, or of relations collapsing randomly. Let's not pretend PRISM didn't happen, that Cambridge Analytica didn't happen, or that one government didn't threaten to invade another government. All the news points to one fact: if the American government gives an order, American tech companies obey. The message is clear: being a customer of a company means being at the mercy of the government where the company is headquartered. Who would want to find themselves in the vortex when a certain government decides to devote its Two Minutes Hate to another place in the world?
- Biganon 9d ago
  There's no "sticking together" with a country that legally elected DJT, sorry.
deleted 9d ago
[deleted]
dash2 9d ago
Guys, this is so pathetic. Twenty-three years after Munich and there are still comments waiting for the year of the Linux desktop. From a deployment about big enough for a small university. Stop! You’re embarrassing yourselves!
- bombcar 9d ago
  It feels like if you count up all the European countries/cities that have converted to Linux you get something like ten times the population by now. It's almost a standard negotiating tactic when it comes time for license renewal.
- diego_moita 9d ago
  Also: it is unclear if this is a switch on operating system, the article only mentions MS Office and OpenOffice. And it is only on 7% off the government's computers. There isn't really anything worth attention here. Pathetic, indeed.
- palata 9d ago
  The French "gendarmerie" has been on Linux for decades now, hasn't it?
throwaway45436 9d ago
Oh for God's sake, can the Europeans please make a European HN already, so these incessant stories go there? I am genuinely happy for you, I wish all you the very best, more competition is good for everyone, and now please stop telling me about your upcoming Swabian clone of MS Paint or how the Moldovan Ministry of Transport is convening a subcommittee to discuss switching to RedoxOS by 2043. It's not actually hacker news. It's not even tech news. It's European bureaucracy news. And it's drowning out far more interesting things on HN.
- embedding-shape 9d ago
  Yeah, if anything, you sure sound happy about it. Why not just hide/flag the story and move on with your life? No one is forcing you to comment. And apparently the rest of HN disagrees with you, it is on the frontpage after all which happens after we all vote or don't vote for it. If I didn't knew better, it does sound like you're slightly jealous of something...
  - throwaway45436 9d ago
    It's true, I'm terribly jealous of the Swabian clone of MS Paint. I stopped using HN recently, as a long time user, because the direction of the site has gone away from neat tech things ("Hacker News") towards boring bullshit like this ("Politico.eu, but make it Reddit"). I still have an RSS feed pointed this way, and it frustrates me. I vented with this throwaway account and comment. These stories are actual garbage. The front page is now full of AI spam and Europeans falling in love with Juche economics. On repeat, forever. Think of all the slow interesting things you don't get to read, because people with rage meters stuck on 11 want to argue over this crap. Think of how difficult it is to discuss anything with any degree of nuance when the Eurobrigade comes out (maybe Europe should have a serious and mature discussion about structural reforms required to boost competitiveness? a reform to the common fisheries policy so that places like Iceland would actually be interested in joining? no no, much easier to just holler about how America is mean and Europe is sunshine and unicorns.) Think of how much more HN is like all the other places on the Internet now. It's been a dramatic change in the last year or two (new moderator... ). I suppose I should just remove the RSS feed and move on. A little sad, honestly.
aetherspawn 9d ago
How are they gonna do email without Outlook Mail servers.
- BLKNSLVR 9d ago
  Less duopolistically, hopefully.
deleted 9d ago
[deleted]
ifdefdebug 9d ago
> Do note that during the pilot phase, the new system runs in parallel with Microsoft 365 rather than replacing it outright. That's okay, I think. Well I think it's not ok without at least a fixed deadline for removal of MS365. People usually have work to do and learning new ways to get it done means extra work, and (almost) nobody takes upon extra work if they don't have to. So the new software will be largely ignored by default.
- palata 9d ago
  > Well I think it's not ok without at least a fixed deadline for removal of MS365 I guess that when you "test" something, it means that you have not yet decided that you will completely migrate there?
  - ifdefdebug 9d ago
    That's the problem, nobody is going to test the new software unless they have to, it will sit unused until the end of the pilot period as long as the old software is available too. Those people are no cs nerds who like testing new software, they are office people and learning new tools is stressful for (most of) them. I have been there.
    - PenguinHacker 9d ago
      I worked in Switzerland for 5 years in the 1980’s before Windows when the IBM PC/AT’s I ordered ran DOS with my own menu software. (And my father who fought in WW2 asked “Didn’t the Swiss allow sealed troop trains through their country?”, but that’s not my topic.) Anyway, I once installed a new version of WordPerfect alongside the old version, guess which version was never used? And the poor secretary who accidentally ran the new version couldn’t work with her old files & went home crying for 3 days. I was blamed for not explaining things, but I was sure anyone could tell the difference between the old & new versions - no, they evidently could not.
jeanmichelselli 9d ago
I love to hear news like that! It was only a matter of time if you ask me.
DeepLogin 9d ago
Actual government announcement: https://www.admin.ch/de/newnsb/EgX1XHIfGtUN https://www.admin.ch/de/newnsb/EgX1XHIfGtUN News article: https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2026/article/microsoft-l-administration-federale-teste-des-alternatives-29346805.html https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2026/article/microsoft-l-admi...
tsoukase 8d ago
I wonder where does Linux have more share, in personal desktops, in private companies or in government.

371 points by ivell 10d ago

Do migrations like this get easier each time? With prior art being available, and an ecosystem and pipeline starts to form around the new norm.

com 10d ago
With a couple of exceptions, my guess is that these migrations are part of the commercial negotiation pack of government procurement agencies. At a certain point I’d expect that tech sovereignty concerns will tip while governments out of the US-vendor mindset.
- walrus01 9d ago
  As exemplified by a major project recently started by the French government: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windows-from-government-computers-in-sovereignty-push https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windo... https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditched-windows-11-for-linux-on-2-5-million-government-pcs-heres-why-microsoft-should-worry-that-millions-more-could-follow-by-the-end-of-2026 https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditch...
- phorkyas82 9d ago
  I'd guess the hurdles are always more structural and organizational - as even with Microsoft stack itself. See for instance the Limux/Munic story: https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/ https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/
LaurensBER 9d ago
The biggest challenge with these kind of migrations is training users, especially government employees. Switzerland is relatively highly educated so this might be less of a challenge than in other countries but it won't be easy. The technical part is probably relatively easy in comparison. Especially because the stakes are low (parallel run with the existing system, good will from everyone involved).
- ur-whale 9d ago
  > Switzerland is relatively highly educated so this might be less of a challenge than in other countries but it won't be easy. True, but that's not accounting for a bunch of typically Swiss cultural factors: - Swiss people tend to love to death the "one standard solution for one particular problem" approach - Swiss people tend to be quite change-averse relative to other nearby cultures. Don't get me wrong I love the Swiss to death, and the above cultural biases actually have their advantages, but re-training government employees is not going to be easy, however well educated they may be. Fortunately, there is another cultural Swiss bias that's going to help: most large Swiss organizations have been designed using the army as a model, which mean Swiss employees tend to obey orders quite well. So if the mandate comes from the top, it'll likely succeed. Eventually. Cause in Switzerland, they tend to take their time (yeah, that's another base cultural cliché, but I couldn't resist. And we're already deep into those already, why stop :-) ).
  - tribaal 9d ago
    As a Swiss I'm a little surprised about your points: 1. We have a wide, per-canton range of solutions for everything even up to school system or tax software. Almost nothing is the same everywhere in the country (not even mentality...) 2. I am quite surprised about the "chage adverse" comment as well, except maybe in rural/conservative villages, people are on the contrary quite forward looking. Our economy is regularly listed as the most competitive in the world. How can competitive economy exist if nothing ever changes? Where does your impression come from? 3. My wife works in the Swiss government and uses a linux desktop at home...
    - LaurensBER 6d ago
      Amen, I've worked in a few European countries and (outside the big companies and banks) the Swiss love to poke around and experiment. They do have a tendency to complain (but so do a lot of Europeans) but that complaining does often translate into action (something, seemingly, a lot less common in the south of Europe) so perhaps that gives outsiders the impression that the Swiss are change adverse?
- 9d ago
izacus 9d ago
Not really - this is akin to doing a complete rewrite of your 30 year old codebase to Rust. Every organization has their own hacks, bespoke tools, processes and hardware that has to be painstakingly replaced, reprogrammed and users retrained. In many cases, Linux alternatives don't exist so they either have to be written or processes/hardware replaced. These are OLD organizations and none of them is really the same as any other. Legendarily, companies like SAP made their whole fortunes managing this kind of complexity. It's just a lot of work with a lot of edge cases you've never thought of (or seen in your life) that takes years.

mikaTheThird 9d ago

Not sure about goverment requirements, but many apps I use nowadays are on the web, Figma, Canva, google docs, outlook and so on. There is not much need for a dedicated OS for most users.

rrr_oh_man 9d ago
SAP, Oracle, weird Office macros from decades ago …
- LtWorf 9d ago
  They might know their own use case better than you and I?
  - Cipater 9d ago
    Their comment said "most users".
    - rrr_oh_man 9d ago
      I don’t know what’s going these days. Users seem to have become much more combative, yet shorter in attention span and shallower in understanding
pitchlatte 9d ago
the browser is definitely becoming more OS-like. that’s the Chromebook bet. but for proper office work you need good file management. if they’re not keen on trusting cloudy solutions by the big corps then FOSS on bare metal is the way to go.

rich_sasha 9d ago

The real risk to MS here is when people take the plunge and see how much nicer a (well supported, well put together) Linux distro is, compared to Windows etc! Will they want to buy their next laptop at home with MSFT installed? Plus, if countries moving off Microsoft put a fraction of the savings into libre office product development, it might get an even more lopsided comparison!

pjmlp 9d ago
Yes, because when they go to Media Market and FNAC they will only have macOS and Windows laptops to chose from. Having Tuxedo, System76 and co is great, but what most people care about is what there are in regular consumer shops. Linux adoption among consumer hardware has only been a success where it is invisible to the user, like the Linux kernel on Android or WebOS, firmware on DVD/BlueRay players,...
- LtWorf 9d ago
  Stores are dead to anyone who is under 35 years of age.
  - embedding-shape 9d ago
    You might want to contact Media Markt, FNAC, Corte Ingles and all the other stores to tell them apparently they have 0 customers yet they pay for rent, salaries and everything else even though no one goes there anymore.
    - repelsteeltje 9d ago
      Add CoolBlue (Netherlands) to that list. Initially a post order-only for consumer electronics, but added bricks & mortar stores because many customers (of all ages, btw) prefer IRL service, viewing and touching actual hardware.
      - guenthert 9d ago

red_admiral 9d ago

Office is going to be a blocker - not just because of the two XML file formats, but because of the different UI. I personally find the Microsoft version more productive despite a mental list of complaints I have with it. The correct choice, in my opinion, would be to invest in a new EU_Office project that uses the Microsoft XML formats. If you're trying to run your government on a new platform, that would also be a hedge against TDF pulling in a direction you don't want: an "independent self-governing meritocratic entity" has possible failure modes that need to go on the risk register.

discordance 9d ago
I have been having some fun lately with some extra tokens from my work, experimenting with setting it loose on replicating software. The results have been pretty surprisingly good. There’s a lot of functionality missing on first use, but I think if I let it churn through a few million more tokens it could get close. I would be very concerned if I were a MS, SaaS or Adobe about what’s to come in the near future.
p2detar 9d ago
That‘s an interesting thought, because I see openDesk packs Collabora for document-editing, I‘ve never ever tried it. Does anyone know how it fairs with file-formats and MS-formatting in general?
3RTB297 9d ago
Office is very much not a problem. LibreOffice has UI plugins that arrange everything in a standard Office pre-365 layout. I've been using it for years and I can't recall a single time I've ran into any issues. I think Excel macros are where the start of dealbreakers begin, which is a niche issue. 90+% of Office users won't hit that wall. Second, the EU has been pouring money into an OpenOffice fork for official use and replacement of Office 365 for a while. https://office.eu/ https://office.eu/
- alkonaut 9d ago
  The 10% excel sheets are exactly the problem. You can replace 90% or even 99% with either some online simpler office suite or none at all. But it will turn out there are business critical things running in 2003 format excel sheets with macros and if anything stops working then the organization stops working. The person who made these sheets and macros has retired 20 years ago and "updating it" would require making a dozen little applications to replace them which would be a huge task. The simple/cheap answer I think is to just keep the power users and legacy systems on the tools they need/want. Because that's where the pain point is that cause these projects to fail. If you aim for 100% you'll end up with 0% eventually. If you aim for 90%, you can do it. But Microsoft know this, and would make sure that a 90% migration saves you much less than a 100% migration. Which is why this is so rare still. (I think the number is probably 99% not 90%, but the point is the same)

sajithdilshan 9d ago

I’m always surprised to see how naive people are when comparing the enterprise/government usage of software vs. Personal usage. Linux and open source software are a good alternative for personal usage, but for government usage, wouldn’t they have to port every custom software they have built over decades to Linux? Not to mention driver support for legacy/custom hardware. Also, from where would they get the support and guarantee that critical bugs and issues are patched and distributed without disruption to every single computer in time? Replacing MS office would be the easiest and what’s the point of migrating away from MS Office while still using Windows eco system? Is it just political symbolic migration because they don’t have anything better to do with tax payers money?

lifestyleguru 9d ago
Custom software they have build over decades is pile of crap. Mostly could be replaced with web interface, gpg encryption, and batch processing of CSV files with bash or python. It will fail because employees want "mouse point and click", "mouse point and double click" interfaces and are unable to use anything else.
thefz 9d ago
> but for government usage, wouldn’t they have to port every custom software they have built over decades to Linux? Maybe not the case for everyone, but this has been the reason for making as much in-house software as possible behind a web frontend.
flippingheck 9d ago
The greater the dependence, the greater the risk.
p2detar 9d ago
Porting software nowadays might prove easier than expected. Exactly how much custom software should one expect? Centralized web applications running on Java are probably the standard anyway, and they are not OS-dependent. The point of migration seems to be data-storage compliance anyway. They can later migrate off Windows easily once openDesk gets them going.
9d ago

KellyCriterion 9d ago

How many of ALL/total government employees are these 3k computers?

kovariantenkak 9d ago
> This is the pilot phase, with 3,000 workstations moving away from Microsoft 365. The federal administration has over 54,000 computers. If only the title had a subtitle or even a full article to provide more information.
- wongarsu 9d ago
  Also further down "If the pilot is successful, we might expect the migration to continue on all the 54,000 workstations owned by the federal administrations. That's my guess". So in the estimate of the author we can expect this to be phase 2 of a three-phase rollout

arjie 9d ago

“Sovereign” is a good brand. Sovereign AI, Sovereign Office Suite (as opendesk bills itself). All a reaction to Trump? Or longer term disentangling?

embedding-shape 9d ago
There been work in this direction for multiple decades already, but up until the confirmation that Trump won his second election, things weren't happening that quickly. Since then though, the steam train been all aboard and everyone and their mother is currently trying to reduce US dependency in pretty much every way they can.
- ivell 9d ago
  One key distinction is the permanancy of Trumpism. The fact that existing controls in the US government cannot stop the extreme Trump actions, and in fact for many cases are explicitly supporting, gave a clear message to other governments that the risk is real, permanent and needs de-risking. Overall Trump is a stress test on the world and found many defects that is slowly getting fixes.

Atariman 9d ago

As a Swiss, I'm happy they finally try it. It's only around 5% of all government machines, but at least it's a start and I wish them all the best! We have to get independent asap from the US, they never were our (or any other countries) "friends" and most likely never will be. OSS ftw!

mrits 9d ago
[flagged]
- Atariman 9d ago
  We were neutral, but it's always funny how many US-guys always bring up WW2. That was maybe the last time, the US did anything "good" for the world. But yeah, I think it's useless to argue with you.
  - embedding-shape 9d ago
    WW2 was long enough ago that no one you end up talking about it actually experienced it themselves, but it's recent enough that people who felt their country did "Good", can still ride that high wave without being pulled down by everything that came after.
    - palata 9d ago
      What? My grandmother experienced it herself, she saw bombings.
      - embedding-shape 9d ago
        Right, I didn't mean "Everyone who was alive during WW2 is today dead", that's obviously not true, it was just 80 years ago or so. What I meant was that most people who discuss WW2 with others online, mostly talk from the perspective of not having experienced the war themselves, nor did the person who they speak to, most likely.

alkonaut 9d ago

The long tail of ms Excel does not get replaced easily. For 90% of customers and 90% of workflows you see either no use of a program, or use cases that can be replaced with anything. But eventually you'll find the power users who do business critical stuff in excel sheets that you notice can't be done in any other way, and if you stop doing it then people aren't paid in time or whatever. This doesn't mean it's a good idea to not try this. But Microsoft also aren't dumb. They know exactly how common this is, and what fraction this is. And they will make sure that it costs little more to keep the Microsoft products across the org, than it costs to keep them for specific users and deal with the mess that happens. This could be said for other things than Excel, but Excel has been one of those moats for decades now.

72deluxe 9d ago
But the general usage of Excel is so negligible in terms of using its actual features that it can be easily replaced. In my experience, non-basic formulas are beyond 99% of people and they use it simply for adding stuff up in a grid. This is why Google Sheets is used in many places as a replacement (even if it balloons RAM usage when presented with a large sheet of data), simply because all of the wonderful features of Excel are unused. The most complex operation some people do seems to be lookup tables.
- jiggawatts 9d ago
  Even casual users utilise more than 10% of the features. The problem is that they all utilise a different 10%.
GoblinSlayer 9d ago
>But eventually you'll find the power users who do business critical stuff in excel sheets that you notice can't be done in any other way What can't be done in any other way?
- alkonaut 5d ago
  Whatever is in those Excel sheets. In any nontrivial org, you'll find it if you try. We found users designing roof trusses in Excel with heavy vbscript macros...

hacker_homie 9d ago

When it finally is the year of the linux desktop, what are we going to do about malware on linux?

embedding-shape 9d ago
I'm not sure neither Microsoft, Apple, LG nor Sony is interested in developing software nor drivers for Linux so I think we're pretty safe on that front.

fpauser 9d ago

Clever move.

theplumber 9d ago

A Mac studio ultra with linux is the best computer I ever had. The only small thing that I miss is the copy/paste from iphone to the computer sync. It seems to me really that there is no going back to macOS any time soon. I don’t think I would still be able to “compute” on Windows.

jonny-puma 9d ago
I've got great news for you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49415386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49415386
wateralien 9d ago
> I miss is the copy/paste from iphone to the computer sync Such a key feature and probably the one thing that keeps me locked into the Apple ecosystem
- trueno 8d ago
  it like stopped working for me this week no idea why
constantius 9d ago
KDE Connect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45557599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45557599

hn_submit 9d ago

Why don't they replace Windows with Linux Mint? That would be much more groundbreaking than simply replacing online Office and Outlook. If you use Linux Mint you can replace Office with LibreOffice (offline) and Outlook with one of the many email clients available for Linux.

tecleandor 9d ago
There are at least a couple or three things around that... - One, that probably, for most of the users, what's is locking them to Windows is a bunch of Microsoft applications. Once you've moved out of those apps, you're free to move them to any other OS. - Two, on government computers there are usually a bunch of things that might be a bit custom and not readily available in other OSes. Smart card readers for weird standards, custom software for security or administration processes, uncommon peripherals... - Three, there are departments that are going to be tied to Windows for a long time, due to very specific software, for example CAD or things like that So I'd say Office is a big and easier win that could allow later allow to move a lot of workstations to Linux. Then, you can focus on the other less common uses of Windows and see how feasible is migrating them. But starting directly moving to Linux would mean starting directly with edge cases and problems.
IslandRebel 9d ago
Because IT often doesn't know how / doesn't want to deal with Linux installations. Also Linux Mint isn't community supported. Large corporations and governments like to have operating systems with long support cycles. That why RHEL has like 10 year support cycles.
palata 9d ago
They consistently choose to depend more and more on the US (see the latest military developments). I'm already surprised they would even consider an alternative to MS365.
timbit42 9d ago
It's easier to replace apps with ones that are available on both Windows and Linux, then later switch to Linux.

Incipient 9d ago

Having a core system be entirely dependent on a foreign entity seems silly when there is a very viable alternative (which also saves a lot on licensing). I say VIABLE not equivalent. Linux is a lot rougher, and the change management process will be brutal. Retooling an entire department/etc to use whatever Linux has instead of entra/intune for device management will also be complex/incomplete/a learning curve. TLDR: any govt would be crazy not to at least trial it, and see if it works.

sylware 9d ago

They have to keep in mind: it will be more expensive (significantly, and in competent people, not only $$$) as you cannot beat big tech with their thousands of billions of $ and the fact they are scaled on a worldwide scope. And with a long term perspective, it is going to be even harder and more 'expensive': being independent and small has a price. Just do not go on the ground of their "complexity", if you do, you are done for, going to be hell (specs subset only of file formats/protocols, and/or very simple alternative file formats/protocols, think docx vs utf8 text file). And you better work on those technical regulations, and it is hard since it must not imped real and pertinent "progress".

monssooon 9d ago

It is sad that EU and USA are falling away from eachother. IMO we should try and stick together in these times. No doubt the US has financed a lot of things for te entire world and no doubt the European countries have put in a lot of effort too. I don't think we should argue over it. We have issues with privacy rights, elder burden, geopolitical turmoil, growing debt burden, environment and so on in all places we need to look forward and stick together...

dmantis 9d ago
What's wrong with having more sovereignty over your data and infrastructure? You don't need to stop working on the mentioned issues together but cutting foreign spies the access to your citizens data and reducing their leverage. That's life, spies going to spy, state psychopaths from the military and the three-latter agencies exist regardless whether you see them or not and they don't care about the "common good". They must be taken into the account. The less power humans have over each other - the better. Instead of pressuring each other to bring profits people would be able to speak like equals.
cthulberg 9d ago
I don't think it's a matter of "US-hate," of renewed nationalism, or of relations collapsing randomly. Let's not pretend PRISM didn't happen, that Cambridge Analytica didn't happen, or that one government didn't threaten to invade another government. All the news points to one fact: if the American government gives an order, American tech companies obey. The message is clear: being a customer of a company means being at the mercy of the government where the company is headquartered. Who would want to find themselves in the vortex when a certain government decides to devote its Two Minutes Hate to another place in the world?
Biganon 9d ago
There's no "sticking together" with a country that legally elected DJT, sorry.

deleted 9d ago

[deleted]

dash2 9d ago

Guys, this is so pathetic. Twenty-three years after Munich and there are still comments waiting for the year of the Linux desktop. From a deployment about big enough for a small university. Stop! You’re embarrassing yourselves!

bombcar 9d ago
It feels like if you count up all the European countries/cities that have converted to Linux you get something like ten times the population by now. It's almost a standard negotiating tactic when it comes time for license renewal.
diego_moita 9d ago
Also: it is unclear if this is a switch on operating system, the article only mentions MS Office and OpenOffice. And it is only on 7% off the government's computers. There isn't really anything worth attention here. Pathetic, indeed.
palata 9d ago
The French "gendarmerie" has been on Linux for decades now, hasn't it?

throwaway45436 9d ago

Oh for God's sake, can the Europeans please make a European HN already, so these incessant stories go there? I am genuinely happy for you, I wish all you the very best, more competition is good for everyone, and now please stop telling me about your upcoming Swabian clone of MS Paint or how the Moldovan Ministry of Transport is convening a subcommittee to discuss switching to RedoxOS by 2043. It's not actually hacker news. It's not even tech news. It's European bureaucracy news. And it's drowning out far more interesting things on HN.

embedding-shape 9d ago
Yeah, if anything, you sure sound happy about it. Why not just hide/flag the story and move on with your life? No one is forcing you to comment. And apparently the rest of HN disagrees with you, it is on the frontpage after all which happens after we all vote or don't vote for it. If I didn't knew better, it does sound like you're slightly jealous of something...
- throwaway45436 9d ago
  It's true, I'm terribly jealous of the Swabian clone of MS Paint. I stopped using HN recently, as a long time user, because the direction of the site has gone away from neat tech things ("Hacker News") towards boring bullshit like this ("Politico.eu, but make it Reddit"). I still have an RSS feed pointed this way, and it frustrates me. I vented with this throwaway account and comment. These stories are actual garbage. The front page is now full of AI spam and Europeans falling in love with Juche economics. On repeat, forever. Think of all the slow interesting things you don't get to read, because people with rage meters stuck on 11 want to argue over this crap. Think of how difficult it is to discuss anything with any degree of nuance when the Eurobrigade comes out (maybe Europe should have a serious and mature discussion about structural reforms required to boost competitiveness? a reform to the common fisheries policy so that places like Iceland would actually be interested in joining? no no, much easier to just holler about how America is mean and Europe is sunshine and unicorns.) Think of how much more HN is like all the other places on the Internet now. It's been a dramatic change in the last year or two (new moderator... ). I suppose I should just remove the RSS feed and move on. A little sad, honestly.

aetherspawn 9d ago

How are they gonna do email without Outlook Mail servers.

BLKNSLVR 9d ago
Less duopolistically, hopefully.

deleted 9d ago

[deleted]

ifdefdebug 9d ago

> Do note that during the pilot phase, the new system runs in parallel with Microsoft 365 rather than replacing it outright. That's okay, I think. Well I think it's not ok without at least a fixed deadline for removal of MS365. People usually have work to do and learning new ways to get it done means extra work, and (almost) nobody takes upon extra work if they don't have to. So the new software will be largely ignored by default.

palata 9d ago
> Well I think it's not ok without at least a fixed deadline for removal of MS365 I guess that when you "test" something, it means that you have not yet decided that you will completely migrate there?
- ifdefdebug 9d ago
  That's the problem, nobody is going to test the new software unless they have to, it will sit unused until the end of the pilot period as long as the old software is available too. Those people are no cs nerds who like testing new software, they are office people and learning new tools is stressful for (most of) them. I have been there.
  - PenguinHacker 9d ago
    I worked in Switzerland for 5 years in the 1980’s before Windows when the IBM PC/AT’s I ordered ran DOS with my own menu software. (And my father who fought in WW2 asked “Didn’t the Swiss allow sealed troop trains through their country?”, but that’s not my topic.) Anyway, I once installed a new version of WordPerfect alongside the old version, guess which version was never used? And the poor secretary who accidentally ran the new version couldn’t work with her old files & went home crying for 3 days. I was blamed for not explaining things, but I was sure anyone could tell the difference between the old & new versions - no, they evidently could not.

jeanmichelselli 9d ago

I love to hear news like that! It was only a matter of time if you ask me.

DeepLogin 9d ago

Actual government announcement: https://www.admin.ch/de/newnsb/EgX1XHIfGtUN https://www.admin.ch/de/newnsb/EgX1XHIfGtUN News article: https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2026/article/microsoft-l-administration-federale-teste-des-alternatives-29346805.html https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2026/article/microsoft-l-admi...

tsoukase 8d ago

I wonder where does Linux have more share, in personal desktops, in private companies or in government.