Austrian armed forces are suspending the use of Microsoft Office in favor of LibreOffice’s open source office software, Heise reports. The decision covers about 16,000 work stations and is motivated by the desire for technical independence and safe data processing within its own infrastructure.
Moving planning began in 2020 when it was clear that Microsoft Office was heading to the cloud. Since 2023, Free Office has become the standard in several departments, and this year Microsoft Office 2016 was eliminated from all computers. However, exceptions are granted, some users are already allowed to use Microsoft Office 2024 LTSC or access solutions for specific needs.
LibreOffice has become the most popular open source office suite, with growing interest between companies and government organizations that seek to continue local deployments. The desire for digital sovereignty among non -American organizations is also increasing interest in open source productivity suites. NextCloud, based in Germany, recently announced its own open source service that invoices as a sovereign competitor digitally for software products as a service such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
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