German federal state makes move away from Microsoft

One of Germany's 16 federal states announced on Friday it had moved away from using online tools by US software giant Microsoft and was instead using software developed in Germany.

The eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern said the move was aimed at achieving more self-reliance in the digital sphere. 

The state's finance minister, Heiko Geue, told dpa that the aim was not only to achieve digital sovereignty, but also to save money in the medium and long term.

At the heart of the new strategy is the introduction of Nextcloud, an open-source online platform developed in Germany. 

It allows users to securely store and share files, as well as chat in teams and hold video conferences, without losing control of their own data to third-party providers.

The transition from Microsoft SharePoint has already been completed smoothly and without any data loss for the first 5,000 employees, says Marco Anschütz, the state's chief information officer.

In the medium term, the project is much larger in scale, with over 50,000 public sector employees - from ministries right through to local authority organizations - set to work with the system in future. The software is operated on the state's own infrastructure by the state-owned IT service provider.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is trying to avoid dependence on US tech giants such as Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, or Amazon, and instead using Mistral from France or Tilde developed in Latvia. 

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has signed a cooperation agreement with the neighbouring state of Schleswig-Holstein, which is regarded as a pioneer in the switch to open-source software.

 Anschütz.