Austria’s Armed Forces have officially completed their migration from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice across 16,000 workstations, marking one of the largest government moves to open-source software in Europe. While cost savings were a factor, the driving force behind the switch was ensuring data security, independence from external cloud providers, and long-term control of IT infrastructure.
According to Michael Hillebrand (Directorate 6 ICT & Cyber), the real aim is digital sovereignty — keeping control of infrastructure, avoiding reliance on external clouds, and ensuring data stays in‑house. As reported by Heise online.
The migration process began in 2020, decision finalized in 2021. From then on, internal planning and training took over: by 2022, devs were being trained, and staff could voluntarily switch. In 2023, a German firm was contracted for support and development, e‑learning modules were deployed, and LibreOffice became mandatory in some departments.
The Austrian military has also contributed its own code back to the LibreOffice project — more than five man‑years of work — so improvements benefit the wider LibreOffice community too.
Although MS Office was deeply integrated (especially via VBA and Access), the military never used Microsoft’s cloud/email components. They ran their own Linux + Samba infrastructure.
As of 2025, Office 2016 has been removed from all machines. If someone still needs MS Office features, they can apply for a controlled module install (Office 2024 LTSC). Access (database) hasn’t vanished completely either, and special fonts are being licensed separately.
