"She has been making this point for a while, with increasing directness, but just over a year into Donald Trump's second term as president of the United States, it continues to grow in importance. As we covered in October last year, one of the leaders in this effort is the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, which switched away from Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook to Open-Xchange and Mozilla Thunderbird."
"We liked his summary of the status quo: We're in the habit of exporting public money out of Europe, and importing dependencies. In a later panel on "Open Source and Economic Security," he noted that digitization in Germany can be difficult, partly due to its state-level IT management and strategy. He recommended a pragmatic approach: Don't look at the big mountain in the distance. Look at concrete steps you can take to start."
European public IT remains heavily dependent on Microsoft, creating a vulnerability that could allow external actors to disable essential services quickly. Political leaders and regional governments are pursuing migrations to open-source email, office suites, and collaboration tools to regain control and keep public spending within Europe. Schleswig-Holstein moved from Exchange and Outlook to Open-Xchange and Thunderbird and replaced Microsoft Office with LibreOffice on nearly all machines, incurring transition costs but benefiting local suppliers. Digitization efforts face complexity from state-level IT fragmentation, prompting calls for pragmatic, incremental steps toward greater digital sovereignty and economic security.
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