Switzerland Begins Its Break from Microsoft: A 3,000-Seat Pilot

The Swiss federal government is moving its first 3,000 workstations from Microsoft 365 to open-source software. That's about 7% of federal administration staff, who have more than 54,000 computers at their disposal in total. The migration is slated for completion by the end of 2027.

The Federal Chancellery is investing 9 million Swiss francs in rolling out the open workspace. The foundation will be openDesk — a German open-source collaboration platform.

From Prototype to Pilot

On September 3, 2026, the Federal Council published the results of the “PoC BOSS” project — a feasibility test involving 172 employees. Basic office tasks such as working with documents and email received positive marks, while large-scale video conferencing still showed technical limitations.

During the pilot phase, the new system will run in parallel with Microsoft 365 rather than replacing it outright. Such a gradual transition looks sensible for a migration of this scale. If the pilot proves successful, the switch could be extended to all 54,000 workstations.

Three Reasons

According to Matthias Stürmer, a professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, Microsoft's dominance in government institutions creates three problems. The first is the risk of foreign access: U.S. cloud legislation could expose Swiss government data to authorities abroad. The second is a threat to service continuity due to reliance on a single foreign supplier. The third is the rising cost of proprietary licenses, over which Switzerland has no leverage.

The Army Is in a Hurry

The military's Cyber Command did not wait for the civilian pilot: it intends to move fully to openDesk as early as October 2026. The reason is the same — an unwillingness to give foreign governments access to sensitive data.

Part of a Bigger Plan

The move fits into a broader digital sovereignty strategy. Back in 2024, the EMBAG law came into force, requiring all federal agencies to publish software developed with public funds as open source by default. In December 2025, the Federal Council made digital sovereignty a priority issue, defining it as the state's ability to carry out its mission without dependence on an external supplier or country.

Neighboring France and Germany are taking similar paths. Microsoft, for its part, is not sitting idle: the company is investing more than 325 million francs in developing its AI and cloud infrastructure in Switzerland — in part to blunt the sovereignty argument.

Source: Hacker News