The state administration of Schleswig-Holstein is making a remarkable U-turn in its IT strategy and consistently relying on open source. After the migration from proprietary Microsoft software to free solutions was initially accompanied by problems and criticism, Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter (CDU) can now report a significant success: According to his ministry, the state will save over 15 million euros in license costs for Windows, Microsoft Office & Co. next year alone. It is expected to be similar in the following years.
In contrast, there would be one-time investments of nine million euros in 2026, explained the Ministry of Digitalization to the Kieler Nachrichten. These would have to be made for the conversion of workplaces and the further development of solutions with free software in the next 12 months. Given the annual savings, this sum will pay for itself in less than a year. In the past, the state transferred millions to the US company Microsoft, primarily for the use of office software and other programs.
The department sees the departure from this “vendor lock-in” – the dependence on a single large provider – as a clear signal for greater independence and sustainable digitalization. The financial incentive now underscores that digital sovereignty can be not only a political buzzword but also an economic gain.
–
See, becoming free while saving money is possible. Wish more entities do this.
[…] almost 80 percent of workplaces in the state administration have already been switched to the open-source office software LibreOffice. […]
Quote from the article.
Why are they always using LibreOffice? This is the dumbest and most expensive way to do it.
Simply out of two facts: LibreOffice has not the greatest compatibility with MS-Office which is required.
And the people itself. In such organizations working people from all ages and most of them are not willing to learn something new.
For example, we or a person working in IT can adapt pretty easily to new things, but just images the 59 years old Official processing submittals and just wait to get into his pension.
I have seen a lot of organizations in the public sector (health care, military, police, state administrations and so on) migrating from MS-Office to LibreOffice and not in a single case worked it.
You need to train your people to be able to use LibreOffice instead of MS-Office, you have many people don’t want to learn or switch, you have bad integrity and compatibility and this all costs a hell lot of money and I doubt that it will work.
Do you mean “why LibreOffice instead of another FOSS?” or “why LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office?” If you mean the latter, seems obvious to me they no longer want to be chained to Microsoft. There may also be a desire to stop being chained to the US.
If you mean the former, the way I see it, LibreOffice is the only FOSS office suite I’m aware of and has enough similarities to Microsoft Office such that they can train their staff to use LibreOffice.
From the article, over 15 millions of Euros per year in license costs for Windows, Microsoft Office, etc. will be saved, and they will make one-time investments to total of 9 million Euros next year for transition purposes. What smarter and less-expensive way would you propose?
Compatibility with Microsoft Office doesn’t appear to be their goal. Without knowing their operational details, how do you know such compatibility is required?
In those cases, what exactly went wrong with their attempted transitions to LibreOffice, and how they could have avoided those issues? Can you point to public sources?
Schleswig-Holstein is under no illusion their transition will go without friction, but they are investing funds into the transition.
They estimate to save 15 million Euros next year, and will invest 9 million Euros next year for their transition, thus I agree they will have the capacity to invest into the FOSS projects whose software they adopt.
Do you mean “why LibreOffice instead of another FOSS?” or “why LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office?”
I mean why LibreOffice instead of other like OnlyOffice, Collobora, NextCloud Office and so on.
If you mean the former, the way I see it, LibreOffice is the only FOSS office suite I’m aware of and has enough similarities to Microsoft Office such that they can train their staff to use LibreOffice.
Are you sure? If you look to OnlyOffice it is far more near MS Office.
Compatibility with Microsoft Office doesn’t appear to be their goal. Without knowing their operational details, how do you know such compatibility is required?
Yes, this is an assumption, but in my mind it the chances are pretty high that they need high compatibility with MS Office due the fact that they interact (incl. send/receiving files from MS-Office/LibreOffice) with other state administrations that did not switch.
In those cases, what exactly went wrong with their attempted transitions to LibreOffice
They were way to depended on MS only features. Like Access or excel deprecated Excel function only in MS Excel.
Many people “refused” the change, since they find LibreOffice inconvenient and hard to work (mainly because the GUI and looks)
how they could have avoided those issues?
Better planing from politicians (most of the people who decided the switch were politicians.)
Not use one software for anything. As I already said many (old) people refuse to work with LibreOffice. So I would give the 59 years old Official who worked his entire life with Word and Excel and is processing submittals OnlyOffice. People in the IT or with higher IT knowledge LibreOffice. If they now go away from OneDrive they could use NextCloud. For this I would again use OnlyOffice as a Document Server or/and Collobora.
Can you point to public sources?
The Austrian military would be such point. They announced that they switch to from MS Office (standalone) to LibreOffice. Sadly I have not seen a single media writing about how this failed epicly. I only know because I know a lot of people in IT that work there.
Yes I was sure, but I was completely unaware of the alternatives. OnlyOffice, NextCloud, CollaboraOffice and so on may be better than LibreOffice but without looking into them I have no opinion.