Austrian Armed Forces switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice

The Austrian Armed Forces are discontinuing the use of Microsoft Office in favor of the open-source office software LibreOffice, Heise reports. The decision covers around 16,000 workstations and is motivated by the desire for technical independence and secure data processing within its own infrastructure.

Planning for the move began back in 2020 when it became clear that Microsoft Office was heading for the cloud. Since 2023, Libre Office has become the standard in several departments, and this year Microsoft Office 2016 was removed from all computers. However, exceptions are granted, with some users being allowed to use Microsoft Office 2024 LTSC or Access solutions for specific needs.

LibreOffice has emerged as the most popular open-source office suite, with growing interest among businesses and government organizations looking to continue on-premises deployments. The desire for digital sovereignty among non-US organizations is also spurring interest in open-source productivity suites. Nextcloud, based in Germany, recently announced its own open-source service that it bills as a digitally sovereign competitor to US software-as-a-service products like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.

The Austrian Armed Forces state that they are also actively contributing to the LibreOffice project by funding and developing new features. So far, the organizations have contributed the equivalent of over five years of development time. Improvements include, for example, better list formats, metadata deletion, and advanced presentation features, improvements that are available to the entire LibreOffice community.