Switzerland's Federal Government Moves 3,000 Workstations Off Microsoft 365

Switzerland's federal government is taking a concrete step toward digital sovereignty by piloting open-source replacements for Microsoft 365 on 3,000 workstations—about 7% of the federal workforce. The Federal Chancellery is investing CHF 9 million in this pilot, which will run in parallel with Microsoft 365 rather than replacing it outright. The migration is targeted for completion by the end of 2027.

The pilot follows a proof-of-concept called "PoC BOSS," which involved 172 federal employees testing the openDesk suite, a German open-source collaboration platform. Results from the PoC, published on September 3, 2026, showed positive assessments for core office tasks like document processing and email, but large-scale video conferencing still had technical limitations.

If the pilot succeeds, the migration could extend to all 54,000 workstations owned by the federal administration. The move is driven by three concerns articulated by Matthias Stürmer, a professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences: the risk of foreign access to Swiss government data under US cloud legislation, the operational risk of depending on a single foreign vendor, and escalating proprietary licensing costs with no Swiss leverage.

Switzerland's military is moving faster. Cyber Command is already poised to replace Microsoft 365 entirely with openDesk by October 2026, citing similar sovereignty concerns.

This initiative is part of a broader legal framework. The EMBAG Law, which came into effect in 2024, requires all Swiss federal agencies to publish government-developed software as open source by default. In December 2025, the Federal Council designated digital sovereignty as a primary focus theme, defining it as "the federal government being able to fulfil its essential mission without depending on an external supplier or country."

Neighboring France and Germany have also attempted similar migrations, though with mixed results. Meanwhile, Microsoft is investing over CHF 325 million to expand AI and cloud infrastructure in Switzerland, partly to counter the sovereignty argument.