Switzerland’s Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers

瑞士联邦政府正将 3000 台电脑更换为开源系统

Switzerland’s federal government has launched a pilot program to replace Microsoft 365 with open source alternatives across 3,000 workstations. That’s about 7% of the federal workforce. The target is to complete the migration by end of 2027. This move follows a successful proof-of-concept and a new digital sovereignty law. A separate fast-track military migration is also already underway.

瑞士联邦政府已启动一项试点计划，旨在将 3000 个工作站上的 Microsoft 365 替换为开源替代方案。这约占联邦政府员工总数的 7%。目标是在 2027 年底前完成迁移。此举是在概念验证成功及一项新的数字主权法案出台后进行的。此外，军方的一项独立快速迁移计划也已在进行中。

The great migration goes into the pilot phase

大规模迁移进入试点阶段

The Federal Chancellery is investing CHF 9 million in an open-source workplace rollout for 3,000 federal employees. On September 3, 2026, the Federal Council published results of “PoC BOSS”, a feasibility proof-of-concept involving 172 federal employees who tested the openDesk suite, a German open-source collaboration platform.

联邦办公厅正投入 900 万瑞士法郎，为 3000 名联邦雇员部署开源办公环境。2026 年 9 月 3 日，联邦委员会公布了“PoC BOSS”的结果，这是一项可行性概念验证，涉及 172 名联邦雇员，他们测试了德国开源协作平台 openDesk 套件。

During the proof-of-concept phase, core office tasks like document processing and email received positive assessments, while large-scale video conferencing still showed technical limitations. Based on the ‘success’ of the PoC phase with 172 employees, the pilot is now launched for 3,000 employees. Do note that during the pilot phase, the new system runs in parallel with Microsoft 365 rather than replacing it outright. That’s okay, I think. Migration of such kind should be gradual rather than sudden.

在概念验证阶段，文档处理和电子邮件等核心办公任务获得了积极评价，但大规模视频会议仍存在技术局限性。基于 172 名员工参与的 PoC 阶段所取得的“成功”，目前已启动针对 3000 名员工的试点。需要注意的是，在试点阶段，新系统将与 Microsoft 365 并行运行，而不是直接完全替换。我认为这没问题，此类迁移应当循序渐进，而非一蹴而就。

If the pilot is successful, we might expect the migration to continue on all the 54,000 workstations owned by the federal administrations. That’s my guess.

如果试点成功，我们预计迁移工作将扩展至联邦政府拥有的全部 54,000 个工作站。这是我的推测。

Why?

为什么？

According to Matthias Stürmer, professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH), Microsoft’s supremacy in public institutions poses three problems that are driving this migration. First is the risk of foreign access. US cloud legislation could expose Swiss government data to foreign authorities. Second is the risk to service continuity, as dependency on a single foreign vendor creates operational risk. The third risk is the escalating costs as proprietary licensing fees are rising with no Swiss leverage.

据伯尔尼应用科学大学 (BFH) 教授 Matthias Stürmer 指出，微软在公共机构中的主导地位带来了三个促使此次迁移的问题。首先是外国访问的风险，美国的云立法可能使瑞士政府数据暴露给外国当局。其次是服务连续性的风险，因为对单一外国供应商的依赖会产生运营风险。第三个风险是成本不断上升，因为专有软件的许可费用在不断增加，而瑞士方面却缺乏议价能力。

Swiss Army is already moving faster

瑞士军队行动更快

Switzerland’s military cybersecurity unit, Cyber Command, is not waiting for the civilian pilot. It is already poised to replace Microsoft 365 entirely with openDesk by October 2026. It is pretty much the same reason. Military doesn’t want foreign governments accessing sensitive Swiss data.

瑞士军队的网络安全部门——网络司令部 (Cyber Command) 并没有等待民用试点。它已准备好在 2026 年 10 月前将 Microsoft 365 完全替换为 openDesk。原因基本相同：军方不希望外国政府访问瑞士的敏感数据。

Part of a bigger plan

更大计划的一部分

Back in 2024, the EMBAG Law came into effect. It requires all Swiss federal agencies to publish government-developed software as open source by default. The law also aims to promote digital sovereignty and encourage innovation and collaboration within the public sector. Then in December 2025, the Federal Council designated digital sovereignty as a primary focus theme. It defines digital sovereignty as “the federal government being able to fulfil its essential mission without depending on an external supplier or country.”

早在 2024 年，EMBAG 法案正式生效。该法案要求所有瑞士联邦机构默认将政府开发的软件作为开源软件发布。该法案还旨在促进数字主权，并鼓励公共部门内的创新与协作。随后在 2025 年 12 月，联邦委员会将数字主权定为主要关注主题。它将数字主权定义为“联邦政府能够在不依赖外部供应商或国家的情况下履行其基本使命”。

Which is essentially moving away from big tech companies from the USA. Neighboring France and Germany have also been trying similar moves. Let’s hope that the great Swiss migration succeeds and sets an example for other countries who may speed up their own plan of moving away from Microsoft.

这本质上就是摆脱美国大型科技公司。邻国法国和德国也一直在尝试类似的举措。希望瑞士的这次大迁移能够成功，并为其他国家树立榜样，促使它们加快摆脱微软的计划。

By the way, Microsoft has deep pockets, so they are also investing over CHF 325 million to expand AI and cloud infrastructure in Switzerland, partly to reduce the sovereignty argument. Let’s see how things move from here, but so far, it is looking positive for us open source supporters.

顺便提一下，微软财力雄厚，他们也正在瑞士投资超过 3.25 亿瑞士法郎以扩展人工智能和云基础设施，部分原因是为了削弱有关主权的论点。让我们拭目以待后续发展，但就目前而言，这对我们开源支持者来说是一个积极的信号。