Danish department determined to dump Microsoft

13 hours ago 1

Comment The boss of Denmark's Ministry for Digitalization says her department will move away from Microsoft – starting with LibreOffice.

In an interview with Danish broadsheet newspaper Politiken [Danish], Caroline Olsen, the country's Minister for Digital Affairs, said she is planning to lead by example and start removing Microsoft software and tools from the ministry. The minister told Jutland's Nordyske [🇩🇰 Danish, but not paywalled] the plan is that half the staff's computers – including her own – would have LibreOffice in place of Microsoft Office 365 in the first month, with the goal of total replacement by the end of the year.

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English-language site The Local is also carrying the story. The move follows similar ones by the city governments of Copenhagen and Aarhus.

Given that earlier this year, US President Donald Trump was making noises about taking over Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, it seems entirely understandable for the country to take a markedly increased interest in digital sovereignty – as Danish Ruby guru David Heinemeier Hansson explained just a week ago.

Just over the border, Germany's northernmost state is also doing the same thing. A few hundred kilometers west, the Dutch government is making similar efforts, and lobbyists from other European nations are badgering the European Commission in the same direction.

When such things are bruited, tech managers in Microsoft-centric organizations typically start whimpering about "but muh macros" and the essential customizations that they couldn't live without. In fact, in the extensive direct experience of the Reg FOSS desk with office staff in multiple countries, most don't even understand how to use document styles, let alone VBA. One former workplace attempted to instruct this vulture in how to lay out an official, paid-for, company report by copying and then doing Paste Format across some 60 pages. The shock when we showed them how to do it in half a dozen mouse clicks was a joy to behold.

The more pressing problem tends to be groupware – specifically, the dynamic duo of Outlook and Exchange, as Bert Hubert told The Register earlier this year. Several older versions go end-of-life soon, along with Windows 10. Modernizing is expensive, which makes migrating look more appealing.

A primary alternative to Redmond, of course, is Mountain View. Google's offerings can do the job. In December 2021, the Nordic Choice hotel group was hit by Conti ransomware, but rather than pay to regain access to its machines, it switched to ChromeOS.

The thing is, this is jumping from one US-based option to another. That's why France rejected both a few years ago, and we reported on renewed EU interest early the following year. Such things may be why French SaaS groupware offering La Suite numérique is looking quite complete and polished these days.

EU organizations can host their own cloud office suite thanks to Collabora's CODE, which runs LibreOffice on an organization's own webservers – easing deployment and OS migration.

A few months ago, we reported on the EU OS proposal, too. It's still not a distro you can download, but since March, the plans have become more detailed and concrete. These moves have their skeptics, as The Register reported last month, but the signs are encouraging.

Such moves will cost real money, and some consultants will make millions – but if that stops those millions flowing across the Atlantic in rental charges for software that nobody can buy, that's arguably not waste.

No, it won't be a perfect fit, an exact one-to-one replacement. That's literally impossible. That's the trap of proprietary software. But it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be good enough to do the job. Across Europe, more and more toes are being shoved into doors, forcing them open. If some office features and furniture get broken in the process, that's a price worth paying. ®

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