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  • The largest German state, Bavaria, has canceled a nearly billion-euro contract with Microsoft.
  • The state administration will pursue a “sovereign basic workspace” based on open-source components.
  • Bavaria’s Digital Minister Fabian Mehring says the decision allows the state to protect itself from price hikes and ensure data privacy.

The Bavarian Ministry for Digital Affairs has officially announced the cancellation of a planned framework agreement with American tech giant Microsoft intended to implement its productivity suite across the state administration.

Regional news website Mittelstand in Bayern reports that Microsoft services would have cost nearly €1 billion ($1.16 billion) over a five-year period.

Instead, Bavaria will pursue a “sovereign basic workspace” based on open-source components.

The decision comes after a months-long power struggle between the state’s Finance Ministry, led by Albert Füracker, who wanted to consolidate existing contracts and secure discounts, and Digital Minister Fabian Mehring, who pushed for open source.

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    • Wudi@feddit.ukEnglish
      18·
      2 days ago

      Microsoft has an entire team whose only goal is to prevent European governments from switching to Open Source. They distribute gifts to politicians.

      Remember, this is exactly how Microsoft operates in the United States:

      Twenty months ago, Representative Billy Tauzin walked into the office of William H. Gates 3rd, chairman of Microsoft, bearing a 10 inch by 10 inch white box and a warning.

      Mr. Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana and the chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the telecommunications industry, placed the box on Mr. Gates’s desk. Inside was a lemon meringue pie, a reminder of another pie that had been thrown in Mr. Gates’s face several weeks earlier by a Microsoft critic. The message to Mr. Gates, the richest man on earth and the leader of the digital world, was blunt: You need to make friends in Washington.

      Mr. Gates apparently took Mr. Tauzin’s message to heart – with a vengeance. While Microsoft and its executives contributed a relatively modest $60,000 to Republican Party committees in 1997, those contributions shot up to $470,000 as part of the company’s overall political contribution of $1.3 million in 1998. The 1998 figure included donations to political candidates, with the bulk of the money going to Republicans. This year, the company’s contributions of nearly $600,000 have been more evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission records.

      Mr. Gates and his top lieutenants have made dozens of trips to Washington, cultivating powerful figures in both parties and hiring some of the city’s priciest lobbyists. Microsoft has retained Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee; Vic Fazio, a former Democratic congressman from California; Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota; Tom Downey, a former Democratic congressman from New York and a close friend of Vice President Al Gore; Mark Fabiani, former special counsel to the Clinton White House; and Kerry Knott, former chief of staff to Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader.

      The company also poured millions of dollars into an aggressive public relations and political offensive, hiring an armada of well-connected lobbyists and underwriting the work of research groups, academics and consultants who have made arguments sympathetic to Microsoft’s defense in the antitrust case.

      Microsoft has hired as consultant-spokesmen two former heads of the Justice Department’s antitrust division and a dozen or more prominent academics and writers, who publish articles and give interviews advocating Microsoft’s position.

      https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/us/us-versus-microsoft-the-strategy-how-microsoft-sought-friends-in-washington.html

      Remember, Trump no longer prosecutes U.S. firms involved in bribery:

      https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c391ml9x878o

      Microsoft earns nearly $30 billion annually from Office.

      $30 billion dollars are at stake. You think their marketing department doesn’t bribe reviewers to harshly criticize LibreOffice?

      The switch to Open Source isn’t going to happen magically.

      It’s going to be a long and bitter battle.

      • RidderSport@feddit.orgEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        I’ve recently been employed by a German state for the last part of legal studies. We MUST not gift flowers, cakes or even a mug to our teachers even after passing their test due to anti-corruption laws. But when you spend millions it is suddenly business as usual

      • Babalugats@feddit.ukEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        I don’t doubt that they will try, but €200 million per year in outgoing expenses is probably what’s going to be looked at, along with the security issue that sparked this whole thing in the first place, the next time any Bavarian politician tries to convince them to move away from euro office, open office or libre office etc. and back to Microsoft. I think the security issues are far too great to convince them, never mind the expense.