Switzerland open-source software transition

The Swiss Federal Chancellery has initiated a pilot program to enhance digital sovereignty by transitioning from Microsoft 365 to open-source software. Following a feasibility study involving 172 testers, the government is investing approximately 9 million Swiss francs to roll out a sovereign office automation platform, known as openDesk, to roughly 3,000 employees by the end of 2027.

This transition is motivated by concerns over dependency on American cloud services and the US CLOUD Act, which officials argue could allow US law enforcement to access sensitive data regardless of storage location. While the initial rollout covers about 7 percent of federal workstations, the long-term objective is to migrate a total of 54,000 computers.

The Swiss Armed Forces are adopting these solutions more rapidly; the Swiss Army Cyber Command and the unit for cyber and electromagnetic operations are required to switch to openDesk by October to ensure data integrity. The openDesk platform, developed by the Center for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS), integrates various European components such as Collabora, Open-Xchange, and Nextcloud.