Category: Marketing

Nearly a year ago, we posted about the German state of Schleswig-Holstein’s plan to move 30,000 PCs from Microsoft Office/365 to LibreOffice.

Now, Stephane Fermigier from EuroStack – which promotes European technological sovereignty and open source – has posted an update, citing an article in the German c’t Magazin. It discusses various reasons for the migration to LibreOffice and Linux, including:

• Digital Sovereignty – Schleswig-Holstein is actively reducing its dependence on a single, non-European tech giant
• Public Money, Public Code – Improvements made to open source software, like accessibility enhancements to LibreOffice, are available to the public
• Public Procurement as a Lever – Schleswig-Holstein is not only improving its own IT infrastructure but also sending a strong signal to the market, potentially encouraging other public administrations to follow suit

In Fermigier’s post he also points to a recent talk from the LibreOffice Conference 2024 in Luxembourg (see below – video also available on PeerTube). Meanwhile, Dirk Schrödter, Head of the State Chancellery of Schleswig-Holstein, posted some thoughts on LinkedIn, including:

This is not just about technological independence but also about economic aspects. At present, our administrations and businesses are trapped in a system characterized by monopolistic structures and high licensing fees. […] It is a core responsibility of our state to be able to influence the operational processes of its IT systems at all times and to ensure the data security of its citizens and businesses. […] The necessary conclusion can only be: Open Source software must become the standard in our digitalized administration.

LibreOffice 25.2 is our new major stable release, with many new features. This video which shows a few of them (also available on PeerTube) is in English but has subtitle translations in 17 languages, thanks to our awesome localisation communities! (You can see their work on this wiki page.)

Join them and help to make LibreOffice, its documentation and marketing materials available in more languages.

One week ago, we announced LibreOffice 25.2, our brand new major release. It’s packed with new features, and has many improvements to compatibility and performance too. So, what has happened in the week since then? Let’s check out some stats…

647,961 downloads

These are just stats for our official downloads page, of course – many Linux users will have acquired the new release via their distribution’s package repositories.

11,313 views, shares and likes on social media

Combining our Mastodon, Bluesky, X/Twitter and Facebook posts about the announcement, and all the likes, shares, views and comments, we get 11,313. Thanks to everyone who spread the word on social media! 😊

528 upvotes on Reddit

On release day, we organised an “ask us anything” event on Reddit. Members of The Document Foundation and LibreOffice community joined in the discussions and answered questions from users and potential contributors.

Huge thanks to our worldwide community of volunteers, and certified developers, for all their work on this release!

Here’s a video from our recent LibreOffice Conference 2024. It details the ongoing migration of 30,000 PCs from Microsoft Office/365 to LibreOffice in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. (The video is also available on PeerTube.)

Italo Vignoli and Mike Saunders from The Document Foundation, the non-profit organisation behind LibreOffice, discuss marketing free and open source software (FOSS). This video is also available on PeerTube.

LibreOffice is always free to download from our website, but it’s also available in the Microsoft Store for a small fee, which covers the costs of putting it there, and helps to sustain future development of the suite.

Currently there’s a special “back to school” offer, and LibreOffice is included, with a 15% discount on the usual price. So if you want to get LibreOffice from the Microsoft Store and help to fund its development – but also save a bit of money – then now’s your chance!

Click here to visit LibreOffice on the store