- 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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So you’re saying it’s in danger of being reversed by Christians and right-wingers at the next election. As usual…
I actually think this decision will likely prevail—but only because similar programs are being implemented by other German states and European countries while the US government’s actions keep getting worse. The CSU will of course be standing on the breaks of every attempt to move faster.
See you in four years, when they’ll enter a new Microsoft contract for five billion Euros because Microsoft generously donated the new Minister a thousand surface laptops.
I would rather see Microsoft have to perpetually bride to remain in use then they just be the defacto choice
I dunno, Microsoft said they are moving away from operating systems, and frankly, this new Outlook bullshit is enough for me to look around to replace our firm’s tech.
Outlook? What did I miss?
The updated outlook just has poor functionality. Searches return stupid stuff and misses the relevant
I concur!
This is the way. Everyone, everywhere follow their lead.
It will be easier for other states to join after Schleswig-Holstein and Bavaria if they are providing feedback so the open-source can be improved to suit the need of states.
Bavarian ministers also cooperate with Palantir to scan for potential terrorist in documents of people in psychological treatment and signed a deal with israeli ai companies on the federal level on internal security measures, calling them a “premium partner”. this is a nothingburger, but i still find it good to gobopen source
We take the wins we can get and fight the battles not yet won. This is a win, the battle with Palantir goes on
This is actually interesting because Bavaria is like the Texas of Germany.
Does Texas have something as good as Bavarian Sausages?
Oh yeah, they do a mean barbecue in Texas.
Don’t Texans have toilets?
More of this please. And quicker.
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.
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.
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
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.
The beauty of open source is that it doesn’t need to become the majority to win, as long as it has a decent chunk of the market it will thrive.
As long as the Bavarians don’t vote for corrupt right-wingers in the next election…
This is big. Bavaria has been solidly in Microsoft’s pocket forever.
Let’s Go
Maybe this time big tech will think twice before paying for an actively harmful political party to gain power. These bridges all got burned and they’re not easily coming back.
More detailed information from a classical newspaper, in German language: https://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/bayern/abhaengigkeit-von-usa-bayern-will-keine-microsoft-lizenzen-1-114314412
Thank you. This article provides better context to the decision. The initial step aims at 40 people in one of the ministries by next year. It’s a start, but a far cry from the misleading main article in the post.
Starting with 40 jobs in one ministry while canceling a billion € statewide contract does signal the direction they’re going, and does seem to indicate a gradual rollout rather than a sudden changeover
… again. I there was already such an attempt resulting into getting back to Microsoft. Looks like something is going to get rich!
