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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Schleswig-Holstein has moved from Microsoft Trade and Outlook to Open-Xchange and Thunderbird for e-mail.
- Different EU entities have opted for open-source options.
- This change is not only a technical change; it is a political transfer.
The German state of Schleswig-Holstein has dumped its government email and calendar systems for open-source software. The six-month migration has changed Microsoft Trade and Outlook with Open-Xchange and Mozilla Thunderbird. The switch lined greater than 40,000 mailboxes and over 100 million messages and calendar entries.
Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter declared, “Mission completed. From the State Chancellery and ministries to the judiciary, police, and different state authorities, our roughly 30,000 staff have launched into a brand new path collectively. We wish to turn into impartial of enormous tech firms and guarantee digital sovereignty. Now we will additionally say: mission completed in relation to e mail communication.”
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Schrödter praised the workers who helped make the transition attainable: “The previous weeks and months have proven that such a transition is not any small feat. We’re true pioneers. There may be hardly a comparable mission of this magnitude worldwide. Our honest thanks go to all staff. With out their help, this transition wouldn’t have been attainable.”
The change to open-source e mail adopted years of planning. The state, in live performance with open-source distributors comparable to Nextcloud, has been changing all proprietary techniques with open-source software program. Final 12 months, for instance, the federal government started rolling out LibreOffice as the default office suite to replace Microsoft Office.
The minister added that Schleswig-Holstein’s expertise will function a mannequin for different administrations transferring towards open applied sciences: “We are able to now use our information, from information evaluation to information heart monitoring, to help others on the identical path.”
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Many different EU authorities companies have already dropped Microsoft software program from their computer systems. These embody the Austrian military, Danish government companies, and the French city of Lyon. The reason is that many European Union (EU) governmental companies are sick and uninterested in counting on American software program firms.
As the federal government of Schleswig-Holstein defined in its April 2025 coverage assertion, Open Innovation and Open Source Strategy: Schleswig-Holstein, wanting forward, “will probably be extra necessary than ever to keep away from financial or technical dependencies of a person, monopolistic nature if the state is to take care of management over the IT techniques utilized by it and retain mastery over the information of its residents and enterprises. Because of this, it’s important to scale back present dependencies and comply with the highway in the direction of digital sovereignty.”
The state believes open-source software program (OSS) is the answer as a result of it “affords an alternative choice to current techniques on the one hand and can also be able to addressing many of those future modifications. That makes OSS probably the most necessary instruments for reaching sovereignty.”
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Digital sovereignty is not a phrase usually heard within the US, but it surely’s an enormous deal in Europe and different international locations. It is not only a case of ‘Proprietary software program: Unhealthy and costly; open-source software program: Low-cost and good.’ Digital sovereignty has turn into a serious political subject.
European governments, companies, and individuals worry that they can’t trust American-based companies and cloud companies to be obtainable when required, or to maintain their information protected. As Germany’s digital minister Karsten Wildberger stated, Germany and the European Union need to “actively participate in this (sector) as players,” not as prospects.
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The rise of digital sovereignty is not a brand new development. “What we need now in every sector, for every innovation, are European solutions and European sovereignty,” stated French President Emmanuel Macron in 2020. He is made digital sovereignty a central subject in his insurance policies.
You’ll be able to count on to see many extra European governments, firms, and people transferring to Linux and open-source software program from Home windows. This is not open-source fan wishful pondering; it is a elementary shift in how folks see and use workplace software program.
