Austria’s military switches from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice
Like we’re seeing in Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark and many other government bodies and organisations, the Austrian military (Bundesheer) has migrated 16,000 PCs from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.
As Heise reports, the main reasons behind the switch are to:
- strengthen digital sovereignty
- maintain independence of IT infrastructure
- ensure that data is processed in-house
The initial plan to move to LibreOffice was formed in 2020, and detailed planning and training of internal developers for improvements began in 2022. In 2023, a company in Germany was contracted to provide technical support and additional development.
The Austrian military’s migration reflects a growing demand for independence from single vendors. With free and open source software like LibreOffice, anyone can study and modify the source code to make improvements specifically for their setup and workflow. Government bodies and organisations can free themselves from vendor lock-in, spending taxpayer’s money on local companies to provide support and further development – rather than paying for license fees from overseas companies.
At the recent LibreOffice Conference 2025, representatives from the Austrian armed forces gave a talk about their switch from Microsoft Office, highlighting some of the new features and improvements that they have sponsored:
