Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

> They’re also cutting dependence on Visa/Mastercard because tying your payment rails to a declining, unstable empire is a bad long-term bet.

People need to get real here and I've got numbers: Europe is the declining, unstable empire.

The US is the US and in three years there's going to be another president. But the EU's problems are much deeper.

Inflation-adjusted, since the 2008 crisis, the Eurozone's GDP barely grew while both China and the US' GDPs grew like crazy.

2008 to 2025 Eurozone's GDP: $14 trillion USD to $17 trillion USD (+18%, inflation adjusted it's basically zero)

US same period: about $15 trillion to $30 trillion [1]

China same period: $4 trillion to $19 trillion, going from not a quarter of the Eurozone's size in 2008 to surpassing the Eurozone in 2025 FFS! In 17 years. This is jaw dropping.

That's when reality should kick in for people who believe the EU is not declining.

At this rate it's not even declining: it's falling from a cliff.

Now, sure, the Eurozone ain't the entire EU and countries outside the Eurozone like Poland are, thankfully, doing better. But things still look terribly bad.

Moreover The EU managed to shoot itself in the foot by destroying the biggest export of its biggest economy: german cars. They handed over the market to chinese EVs.

The EU also managed, when the US advised it not to, to become dependant on Russia for energy. And of course four years ago we now all know how well that played for Germany: Russia wasn't our friend anymore and energy price --and the industries in Germany do need lots of energy-- skyrocketted.

The EU is destroying itself both economically and culturally. Things are looking terribly bad over here.

I don't know how anyone can look at the US and at China's GDP growth compared to the Eurozone and believe that somehow Europe is doing fine.

Europe is not doing fine: Europe is definitely a declining, unstable (lots of far-right vs far-left parties opposing themselves in elections in many EU countries now) empire.

That said I very much welcome ditching MS software.

[1] round numbers but it is what it is: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP

What I find interesting, and reflects my ignorance of how these things are used, is that if you look at, say, FAANG companies, Office isn't used. I've worked for two FAANGs over the past couple of years, and everything is done via Google docs. Replacing a giant suite like Office looks hard, replacing something simpler like Google docs looks very much simpler, and surely should suffice?

The interesting question is not "can LibreOffice replace Word" but whether Denmark is restructuring identity, device management, and procurement to avoid recreating lock in elsewhere. Office is visible, but AD or Entra, MDM, compliance tooling, and vendor tied workflows are the real gravity wells. The success metric is not feature parity. It is whether dependency risk is measurably reduced over a 5 to 10 year horizon without fragmenting operational continuity.

> Especially OnlyOffice looks extremely similar to MS Office, I have it on all our Linux laptops at home so the kids don't feel much difference between home and school envs.

This is how you make them dependent on a single MS-like interface. Kids are the most flexible, and shouldn't need. Would go as far as to say they are mildly harmed by not being exposed to different workflows.

Sure glad no one paved Windows over our Macs and Amigas so we wouldn't have to learn anything else.

A token gesture. Europe is extremely dependent on foreign tech. I don't see the political will to really change that. I think the main causes are corruption, incompetence, extortion (negotiations on trade, etc.), and short-term thinking of politicians and managers. People did warn them, but they were ignored. They fucked the citizens long-term. Treason.

Critical infrastructure, such as energy, healthcare, or train service, runs on US software and services and thus only works as long as the US allows it. In Germany, the German Railway moved all of their software services into US clouds and shut down their own data center. That didn't protect them from a recent DDoS, taking down their main customer-facing site for hours.

Meanwhile, the local job market abounds with job ads from government agencies and private businesses, requiring administrating MS software (AD, 365, Exchange), cloud and doing "Power"-stuff.

The study "European Software and Cyber Dependencies" [1] (Dec 2025) from of the European Parliament explains the dire state. It's full of money quotes:

"Non-EU actors, primarily US companies, control nearly all critical layers of Europe’s digital stack. These dependencies are reinforced by vendor lock-in, long-term contracts, proprietary formats, & network effects that limit switching and suppress market entry for EU innovators"

"80% of European corporate spending on software and cloud flows to US vendors."

"Public administrations rely heavily on Microsoft and Google productivity suites, with only isolated instances of migrations to open-source alternatives"

"A case study of the EU’s energy infrastructure provides a further illustration of how its digitalisation creates critical cyber dependencies. Industrial control, grid management, and market-trading software increasingly rely on non-EU vendors and cloud platforms."

"Such heavy reliance on US tech and vendors results in [...] tangible sovereignty risks. The CLOUD Act, FISA Act and US sanctions regimes give US authorities legal reach over data of European citizens and institutions hosted by American providers."

"Dependence extends across the supply chain — from chips and hardware (90% of advanced semiconductors imported) to developer tools and standards (GitHub, Docker, and major programming frameworks are US-governed);"

"The EU’s digital trade deficit exceeds EUR 100 billion annually"

"These outflows finance US R&D and jobs: according to one study, retaining just 15% of this spending could create around 500,000 jobs in Europe by 2035;"

"Lock-in inflates long-term costs and undermines innovation, while dependence on external platforms diminishes Europe’s leverage in trade and security negotiations;"

"Europe’s software and cyber dependencies are becoming a structural strategic liability. [...] without decisive action, Europe risks becoming a “digital colony”- dependent on others’ platforms, standards, and priorities for decades to come."

"[EU]’s deep reliance on non-EU tech is a strategic vulnerability. It exposes the EU to geopolitical coercion (a de-facto “virtual kill switch”), with potential cascading disruption across finance, health, energy and transport if access to […] cloud or key software is curtailed.

"In the current geopolitical scene, technology interdependence is being weaponised. External pressure can push the EU to dilute rules or face retaliatory trade measures, while dependence reduces Europe’s geopolitical leverage."

"the EU already faces pressure to dilute its own digital regulations to appease allies or avoid retaliation – recently, trade negotiators even been softening EU digital rules (like the new Digital Markets Act) in exchange for avoiding US tariffs"

"if a major US platform suffered a prolonged outage, or if transatlantic relations deteriorated, leading to data access blocks, a large swath of European business and government services could grind to a halt."

"semiconductors account for about 80% of the strategic value of a data centre; building AI campuses without European hardware will therefore send most of the value abroad"

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2025/7785...