Digital sovereignty: EU cloud; Microsoft exit in Danish digital ministry; true cost of Windows 11

[German]The Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs is saying goodbye to Microsoft and will move (probably to Linux and) to LibreOffice in near future – thanks to Trump. And the LibreOffice makers have set their sights on Windows 11 in order to break down the true costs of using it. There is also currently a discussion about the EU cloud and EU data centers.

Since US President Donald Trump has been raging with erratic decisions in the US, a mood of "we need more digital sovereignty" has been spreading in Europe. There are now a number of players in this area who want to take advantage of the momentum created by the end of support for Windows 10.

Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs kicks Microsoft Office

Germany has its (politically canceled) LiMux project in Munich, where politicians are firmly chained to Microsoft. But in Schleswig-Holstein, the state government has been working on plans to move away from Microsoft and towards open source since 2018. There, 30,000 PCs in the administration are being converted to LibreOffice (see my German blog post LibreOffice 25.2 mit ODF 1.4 Support; Umstieg von 30.000 PCs in Schleswig-Holstein) and since US President Donald Trump has been raging with erratic decisions in the USA, a mood of "we need more digital sovereignty" has been spreading in Europe. There are now a number of players in this area who want to take advantage of the momentum created by the end of support for Windows 10.

Since Trump wants Greenland, Denmark forced the development to reduce the dependency from US tech industry. The Danish news medium Politiken has published an articleCaroline Stage udfaser Microsoft i Digitaliseringsministeriet, in which the Danish Digital Minister Caroline Stage announces her departure from Microsoft (neowin.net has noticed it for instance).

It is said that for the first time, sovereignty is now a priority in the government's joint digitalization strategy with municipalities and regions. The Minister for Digitalization, Caroline Stage, will begin the exit from Microsoft in her own ministry as early as July 2025. The plan is that in a month's time and over the course of the summer, around half of the staff will be working with computers on which Office 365 will be replaced by Libre Office. If things go as expected, all employees will be working with an open source solution in the fall.

By its own admission, the ministry has a contingency plan. If a switch proves difficult in certain areas, it could temporarily revert to the previous system in order to examine other solutions.

The minister's announcement was made ahead of the presentation of a new digitalization strategy for the next four years, in which digital sovereignty is a priority for the first time. The strategy was agreed between the state, the regions and the municipalities.

The Digital Minister is quite determined: "We won't get any closer to our goal if we don't start." For Danish politicians, this initiative is not just about Microsoft, but about reducing the excessive dependence on a handful of providers.

In addition to Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, several European countries are working on breaking away from the Microsoft monopoly.

ODF promotes the switch to Linux/LibreOffice

With the end of support for Windows 10, Microsoft wants users to switch to Windows 11 (free of charge in the private sector). But millions of PCs that cannot be updated to Windows 11 are likely to end up as electronic waste (see my German blog post Windows 10 Support-Ende: Benachrichtigungen und Tipp "PC zu entsorgen").

But there are alternatives to continue running Windows 10 (see also the article October 14, 2025: End of support for Windows 10 and other software). The alternative or better solution is to switch the Windows 10 machines to Linux and keep them running until the hardware fails. I wrote about this at the beginning of the month in the article Windows 10 end of support: The "End of 10" campaign to switch to Linux pointed out the campaign to save such PCs by switching to Linux.

Now the Open Document Foundation (ODF), which develops LibreOffice, has also taken up the issue. In the article The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice , the ODF discusses the "real costs of switching to Windows 11" – neowin.net noticed this.

The ODF's message is that users do not have to follow Microsoft's upgrade path. There is a better option that puts control back in the hands of users, institutions and public bodies: Linux and LibreOffice. Together, these two programs offer a powerful, privacy-friendly and future-proof alternative to the Windows and Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Regarding the actual costs of switching to Windows 11, the ODF writes that it is not just about security updates. Switching to Windows 11 increases dependency on Microsoft through aggressive cloud integration and forces users to adopt Microsoft accounts and services. At the end of the day, this also leads to higher costs due to subscription and licensing models. It also reduces control over your own computer and the management of your own data. Furthermore, the new hardware requirements will make millions of perfectly good PCs redundant, argues the ODF.

The turning point has been reached, the world must move away from the Microsoft monoculture towards the free alternatives Linux and LibreOffice. These two programs form the backbone of a free and open computing environment based on open standards. For private users, public administrations, schools and companies, this combination offers more than enough: it is mature and secure and is already being used worldwide for business-critical tasks. In addition, the use of open standards protects users from any attempts by software developers to control them.

Incidentally, users of Windows 7 and Windows 8.x will soon be saying goodbye to LibreOffice. These operating systems are no longer supported in version 25.8 beta 1, as neowin.net noticed here.

MS365 alternative from IONOS and Nextcloud

In this context, I also found the German initiative by IONOS and Nextcloud to offer an alternative to Microsoft 365 exciting. Nextcloud provides the software, while IONOS takes care of the hosting. The solution is intended to offer a sovereign online workplace with email, office, video conferencing, chat and AI. Everything is based on open source technology and comes with full transparency and user control over data and infrastructure, they say. The whole thing should be available in 2025. Here I refer to this German article at heise, which has compiled some more details.

Controversy surrounding European cloud data centers

And then there is the controversy surrounding European cloud data centers, which are being set up by European providers to compete with the cloud data centers of the US tech giants. SAP CEO Christian Klein describes the European investments as "crazy" – the US data centers on European soil offer everything you need and Europe can't keep up anyway.

I first came across this statement at The Register in the article Europe's cloud datacenter ambition 'completely crazy' says SAP CEOKlein sees little benefit or sense in trying to build data centers in Europe by local providers to try to compete with US cloud hyperscalers that are already invested in Europe. It is nonsense to compete with the dominant hyperscalers, was the message at an investment conference.

SAP has made agreements with the French AI company Mistral and the services company Capgemini to support customers who are concerned about data sovereignty in Europe. However, he sees no point in repeating these efforts at the cloud infrastructure level. However, he fails to recognize the leverage effect of the US Cloud Act – no matter what the US cloud providers promise and where they host their cloud, as soon as the US Cloud Act takes effect, the US administration has access to the data.

However, one thing should be kept in mind when considering SAP CEO Klein's statements: The German Delos Cloud, which is to be introduced by the SAP subsidiary of the same name to German authorities and governments, is based on the Microsoft Cloud. As the saying goes: nobody wants to cut their own throat – there are massive business interests at Klein – and the Delos Cloud has yet to make a breakthrough.

In the recent German article Deutsche Cloudanbieter widersprechen SAP-Chef (German cloud providers contradict SAP boss), the editorial team at Golem also took up the opposing position of German vendors IONOS, T-Systems and the Schwarz Group. Their argument is that the establishment of European AI gigafactories/data centers in competition with US hyperscalers is a major challenge. However, this must be accepted, also because the market wants it that way. Achim Weiß, head of cloud provider IONOS, is quoted as saying "If you want the future, you have to build it – not discuss it. But those who wait for perfect conditions will only achieve one thing: that others have long since created the facts."

In some places, I rub my eyes in amazement. What is currently happening would never have happened two or three years ago. But since Donald Trump made the world aware of the dependencies, at least the wind has changed a little. It won't be easy, but there are signs of momentum for change.