Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3,000 Computers

Switzerland's federal government has launched a pilot program to replace Microsoft 365 with open source alternatives across 3,000 workstations — roughly 7 percent of the federal workforce — with the migration targeted for completion by the end of 2027. The move follows a successful proof of concept and a new digital sovereignty law.

What the pilot covers

The Federal Chancellery is investing CHF 9 million in the open source workplace rollout. On September 3, 2026, the Federal Council published the results of "PoC BOSS", a feasibility proof of concept in which 172 federal employees tested openDesk, a German open source collaboration platform. Core office tasks such as document processing and email received positive assessments, while large-scale video conferencing still showed technical limitations.

During the pilot phase the new system runs in parallel with Microsoft 365 rather than replacing it outright. The federal administration operates more than 54,000 computers, so a successful pilot could open the way to migrating the rest of that fleet.

Why Switzerland is moving away

Matthias Stürmer, a professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH), identifies three problems with Microsoft's dominance in public institutions. The first is the risk of foreign access: US cloud legislation could expose Swiss government data to foreign authorities. The second is the risk to service continuity, since depending on a single foreign vendor creates operational risk. The third is cost: proprietary licensing fees keep rising while Switzerland has little leverage over them.

The legal groundwork came from the EMBAG law, which took effect in 2024 and requires federal agencies to publish government-developed software as open source by default. In December 2025 the Federal Council made digital sovereignty 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.

The military is moving faster

Switzerland's military cybersecurity unit, Cyber Command, is not waiting for the civilian pilot. It is poised to replace Microsoft 365 entirely with openDesk by October 2026, for the same reason: it does not want foreign governments to be able to reach sensitive Swiss data.

France and Germany have pursued similar moves in recent years. Microsoft, for its part, is investing more than CHF 325 million to expand AI and cloud infrastructure in Switzerland, partly to weaken the sovereignty argument. The Swiss pilot is being watched as a test of whether a large public administration can move core office work to open source without losing functionality.