Switzerland’s federal government has launched a pilot program to replace Microsoft 365 with open‑source alternatives on approximately 3,000 workstations, which the article notes represents about 7% of the federal workforce. The Federal Chancellery is investing CHF 9 million in the rollout, and the target date for completing the migration is the end of 2027, according to the source. The pilot follows a proof‑of‑concept called “PoC BOSS” that involved 172 federal employees testing the openDesk suite, a German open‑source collaboration platform. During that phase, core office tasks such as document processing and email received positive assessments, while large‑scale video conferencing still showed technical limitations, the article reports. The pilot system runs in parallel with Microsoft 365 rather than replacing it outright, a approach the source describes as appropriate for a gradual migration. If the pilot proves successful, the source suggests the migration could be extended to all 54,000 workstations owned by the federal administrations. The move is motivated by three concerns outlined by Matthias Stürmer, a professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH): the risk of foreign access to Swiss government data under US cloud legislation, the risk to service continuity from dependence on a single foreign vendor, and the escalating costs of proprietary licensing fees with no Swiss leverage. Switzerland’s military is acting more quickly; the article states that the Cyber Command is poised to replace Microsoft 365 entirely with openDesk by October 2026 for the same reasons of data sovereignty. The initiative is situated within a broader legal framework. The EMBAG Law, which came into effect in 2024, requires all Swiss federal agencies to publish government‑developed software as open source by default and aims to promote digital sovereignty. In December 2025 the Federal Council designated digital sovereignty as a primary focus theme, defining it as the ability of the federal government to fulfil its essential mission without depending on an external supplier or country. The article notes that neighboring France and Germany have pursued similar efforts to reduce reliance on big‑tech US firms. It also mentions that Microsoft is investing over CHF 325 million to expand AI and cloud infrastructure in Switzerland, partly to counter the sovereignty argument. The source concludes that, so far, the outlook appears positive for open‑source supporters.
