Denmark: Bye-bye Microsoft?
Farewell by fall: Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs turns its back on Microsoft
All employees at the Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs are to do without Microsoft. Linux and LibreOffice will be used instead, says the minister.
In the coming months, the Danish Ministry of Digitalization is to completely abandon Microsoft and use Linux instead of Windows and switch from Office 365 to LibreOffice. This was announced by Minister Caroline Stage (Moderaterne) in an interview with the daily newspaper Politiken. This comes just a few days after the country's two largest municipalities initiated similar steps. This summer, half of the ministry's employees will be equipped with Linux and LibreOffice. If everything goes as expected, the entire ministry will be free of Microsoft by the fall, Politiken summarizes.
Far too dependent on a few providers
The Ministry of Digitalization's move away from Microsoft is therefore taking place against the backdrop of a new digitalization strategy in which the Kingdom's "digital sovereignty" is given priority. According to newspaper reports, the opposition is also calling for a reduction in dependence on US tech companies. Just a few days ago, the administration of the capital Copenhagen announced its intention to review the use of Microsoft software. The second largest municipality, Aarhus, has already started to replace Microsoft services. Stage has now told Politiken that they should cooperate and that it is not a race. All municipalities should work together and strengthen open source.
When asked how her ministry would react if the transition was not so easy, Stage replied that they would then simply return to the old system for a transitional period and look for other options: "We won't get any closer to the goal if we don't start." So far, she has only heard from employees who welcome the move. But in her ministry, which is mainly concerned with digitalization, she expects a lot of interest anyway. She also assured them that the initiative is not about Microsoft alone, as they are generally far too dependent on a few providers.
As background for the move, the article also refers to the events at the International Criminal Court where an e-mail account operated by Microsoft was disconnected. This caused an uproar throughout Europe. In Denmark, there is also the fact that the new US President Donald Trump has been announcing for weeks that his country wants to take over Greenland. The island in the North Atlantic is a self-governing part of Denmark, and the outrage at Trump's proposal is huge. The desire to reduce dependence on US corporations is therefore apparently even greater there than in the rest of Europe.