Switzerland's Federal Government Tests Open-Source Alternatives to Microsoft on 3,000 Computers

Switzerland's federal government has initiated a pilot program to evaluate open-source alternatives to Microsoft 365 on 3,000 workstations, representing approximately 7% of the federal workforce. The objective is to complete the transition by the end of 2027. In September 2026, the Federal Council presented the results of PoC BOSS, a feasibility proof-of-concept that involved 172 federal employees testing the openDesk suite, a German open-source collaboration platform.

The pilot demonstrated positive outcomes for core office tasks such as document processing and email, while large-scale video conferencing presented technical challenges. The pilot will now be expanded to 3,000 employees. Professor Matthias Stürmer of the Bern University of Applied Sciences attributes Switzerland's shift towards open-source alternatives to three main concerns: the risk of foreign access, service continuity, and escalating costs.

The military cybersecurity unit, Cyber Command, is already planning to replace Microsoft 365 with openDesk by October 2026, citing the same reasons. The pilot phase operates alongside Microsoft 365, but the author suggests the migration could eventually be applied to all 54,000 federal workstations.