Switzerland tests a FOSS escape route from Microsoft 365
Swiss Army sticks a knife in American cloud apps with its own FOSS push
The Swiss Federal Chancellery is preparing to introduce a free and open-source software (FOSS) workplace suite for some 3,000 government employees, while the Swiss Armed Forces are following this initiative more swiftly. Digital sovereignty is not confined to the European Union, as Switzerland plans to offer a FOSS alternative alongside Microsoft 365 for its government staff.
The program will kick off with an initial 3,000 employees out of the total 47,000 federal workers, with the platform set to become available for about 3,000 selected employees by the end of 2027, costing roughly CHF 9 million. This follows a BOSS Proof of Concept feasibility study, which evaluated browser-based FOSS tools with 172 users.
The study highlighted that the suite would not replace Microsoft 365, nor would it provide 1:1 functionality, full M365 compatibility, or be a permanent infrastructure. Swiss Radio recently reported that the federal government had spent CHF 1.1 billion on Microsoft licenses. The Chancellery chose openDesk, a collaboration suite from the German state-owned enterprise ZenDIS, for the project.
This aligns with Switzerland's Digital Switzerland Strategy 2026 and the Federal Law on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Governmental Tasks (EMBAG). The Swiss Armed Forces are also accelerating their move to digital independence, aiming to complete the migration by October 2026. Austria has also taken similar steps, with the Austrian military presenting a case study on migrating to LibreOffice at the LibreOffice Conference in Budapest.
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