Redazione RHC : 30 September 2025 10:12
In recent years, many companies have gone cloud-first , outsourcing critical infrastructure and business services to platforms managed by external providers. However, recent events and growing concerns about digital sovereignty are prompting many organizations to reconsider their level of dependence on uncontrollable cloud services within their regions.
The vulnerability of critical data and the possibility that external political or commercial decisions could limit access to resources have made it clear that internal management and the choice of open source solutions can represent a more secure strategic alternative.
The Austrian Armed Forces have completed a major overhaul of their IT infrastructure, completely abandoning Microsoft Office in favor of the open source LibreOffice suite. The transition, completed in September 2025, affected approximately 16,000 workstations and has become one of the most visible examples of digital transformation in Europe.
The financial benefits are clear: a Microsoft 365 E3 subscription, priced at $33.75 per user, would cost approximately $6.5 million per year, while LibreOffice requires no upfront costs. However, in this case, cost savings were not the deciding factor.
The main reason was the desire for digital sovereignty and independence from external cloud services. As Michael Hillebrand, Head of ICT and Cyber Defense at the Austrian Ministry of Defense , explained , it was crucial for the army to ensure that critical data was processed exclusively within the country and not dependent on decisions made by foreign companies .
Concerns intensified in 2020 , when the military recognized the risks of dependence on American cloud providers. Similar conclusions were reached in Germany: as early as 2019, the Interior Ministry warned against excessive dependence on Microsoft products.
Austria isn’t alone in taking this step. The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is migrating its government agencies to Linux and LibreOffice , while Danish authorities have announced they’re abandoning Microsoft solutions .
And Lyon, France, is adopting Linux and LibreOffice to better protect citizens’ data. This trend is accelerating amid European countries’ growing distrust of American software vendors.
Many governments fear that political pressure could influence the functioning of these services. These concerns are reinforced by recent examples: Microsoft recently reportedly blocked Israel’s access to Azure , used for Palestinian surveillance, demonstrating that companies can deny access to critical resources for political purposes.
Preparations for the transition in Austria had been underway for several years. Starting in 2022, employees could voluntarily migrate to LibreOffice, and in 2023, external developers were brought in to provide training and refine features for military needs. Some of these improvements, from expanded chart and pivot table functionality to an improved presentation editor, have been transferred back to the LibreOffice project and are now available to all users.
While Microsoft Office 2016 remained integrated into Army workflows for a long time, it was completely removed in the fall of 2025. However, for certain tasks, the use of Office 2024 LTSC modules or specialized programs such as Microsoft Access is permitted, but only upon request.
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