No chance. One of the key people of Digitaal Vlaanderen went to Microsoft.
I doubt it… but I guess anything is possible.
I doubt the Belgian government would do this. The only reason why they’re able to do this in Denmark is because it’s only happening in the ministry of digitalisation. They want more control over their software and data. They started a switched of their windows systems to Linux a little while ago, and this is their next step.
Germany did something similar in 2024 where they also transferred over quite a few government systems, infrastructure, and computers to Linux.
But office 365 is so hardwired into the Belgian government that it would an obscene amount of effort and training to do this.
I remember someone I know within the government that had a manager (or someone high up) who wanted to switch out Office 365 to Googles workspaces and software…this very quickly shut down when they calculated the transition costs, and the pure panic of the employees
Impossible for the Police at this state. Their system is build around Word.
You are not aware how much that will cost? Replacing all Bloc note, post it’s, binders and pencils.
No. Not by a long shot. If possible they would even crawl into Microsoft’s butt.
I would assume the purchase of “Microsoft Office” or similar goes through a ‘Request for Proposal’ where a government department requests companies to make an offer and then picks the best based on criteria listed in that RFP.
Of course, that does requrie a company to answer. They wouldn’t simply say “we’re using LibreOffice” but would requrie a company that can guarantee the offering.
What kind of enterprise support does LibreOffice offer?
No, don’t ask me how I know.
No because they probably have a ton of huge Excel files with custom macros which would take insane amounts of time to port to LibreOffice.
Ministerial decree in 2015 or something actually obligated us to install LibreOffice on every user pc. Not a single user ever opened it AFAIK.
I noticed it once again made available in our software library for all users, but it’s still only voluntary thing.
I bet some change management consultancy firm is salivating at the thought of introducing LibreOffice at some company.
Some people would still use Lotus 123 if they had the option. Hell, some agencies still used it not even a decade ago.
You can change the government with almost every big company. Almost all working with m365 and Azure cloud. Really surprising how Microsoft dominated the Belgian market is compared to other countries.
I’d love to see a more coordinated European effort to move away from American companies as Microsoft.
Moving to LibreOffice would only work with the right support.
As long as NVA/MR are in power not a chance. They’d have to cancel contracts with all their consultancy friends
I work for the government in an IT department. No they are not..
Nah only interested in pay without doing anything really. Snapshots of smiling and shaking hands…
There just isn’t any money for that. Gov IT budgets (for departments/agentschappen) do not have the means to switch ,and most importantly, support and train users. we’re talking about 5x to 10x needed IT budgets
I work in an administration in the Brussels region and we were 15 years ago on all opensource softwares , but we switched to 365 and on a highway to be fully microsofted
It´s not just about switching an application. It´s switching an entire ecosystem with loads of third party integrations which will also need to be modified (if at all possible) or replaced (if anything is available).
Then there´s finding skilled IT staff, trainers, retraining users, migrating data and applications, …
Finding companies to provide support will be difficult. They´ll need skilled IT people and trainers as well, competing with their customers for talent.
And then, both the major strength *and* weakness of OSS: choice. There´s way too much choice. Which distro? Which office application? Which sql? Which…?
No chance. They migrated a ton of stuff to Microsoft share a few years ago at the Onem. They’re too integrated to Microsoft stuff to switch to office
22 comments
No chance. One of the key people of Digitaal Vlaanderen went to Microsoft.
I doubt it… but I guess anything is possible.
I doubt the Belgian government would do this. The only reason why they’re able to do this in Denmark is because it’s only happening in the ministry of digitalisation. They want more control over their software and data. They started a switched of their windows systems to Linux a little while ago, and this is their next step.
Germany did something similar in 2024 where they also transferred over quite a few government systems, infrastructure, and computers to Linux.
But office 365 is so hardwired into the Belgian government that it would an obscene amount of effort and training to do this.
I remember someone I know within the government that had a manager (or someone high up) who wanted to switch out Office 365 to Googles workspaces and software…this very quickly shut down when they calculated the transition costs, and the pure panic of the employees
Impossible for the Police at this state. Their system is build around Word.
https://news.microsoft.com/nl-be/vlaamse-overheid-sluit-overeenkomst-met-microsoft-voor-de-digitale-werkomgeving-van-de-toekomst/
All signs point to no.
You are not aware how much that will cost? Replacing all Bloc note, post it’s, binders and pencils.
No. Not by a long shot. If possible they would even crawl into Microsoft’s butt.
I would assume the purchase of “Microsoft Office” or similar goes through a ‘Request for Proposal’ where a government department requests companies to make an offer and then picks the best based on criteria listed in that RFP.
Of course, that does requrie a company to answer. They wouldn’t simply say “we’re using LibreOffice” but would requrie a company that can guarantee the offering.
What kind of enterprise support does LibreOffice offer?
No, don’t ask me how I know.
No because they probably have a ton of huge Excel files with custom macros which would take insane amounts of time to port to LibreOffice.
Ministerial decree in 2015 or something actually obligated us to install LibreOffice on every user pc. Not a single user ever opened it AFAIK.
I noticed it once again made available in our software library for all users, but it’s still only voluntary thing.
I bet some change management consultancy firm is salivating at the thought of introducing LibreOffice at some company.
Some people would still use Lotus 123 if they had the option. Hell, some agencies still used it not even a decade ago.
You can change the government with almost every big company. Almost all working with m365 and Azure cloud. Really surprising how Microsoft dominated the Belgian market is compared to other countries.
I’d love to see a more coordinated European effort to move away from American companies as Microsoft.
Moving to LibreOffice would only work with the right support.
As long as NVA/MR are in power not a chance. They’d have to cancel contracts with all their consultancy friends
I work for the government in an IT department. No they are not..
Nah only interested in pay without doing anything really. Snapshots of smiling and shaking hands…
There just isn’t any money for that. Gov IT budgets (for departments/agentschappen) do not have the means to switch ,and most importantly, support and train users. we’re talking about 5x to 10x needed IT budgets
I work in an administration in the Brussels region and we were 15 years ago on all opensource softwares , but we switched to 365 and on a highway to be fully microsofted
It´s not just about switching an application. It´s switching an entire ecosystem with loads of third party integrations which will also need to be modified (if at all possible) or replaced (if anything is available).
Then there´s finding skilled IT staff, trainers, retraining users, migrating data and applications, …
Finding companies to provide support will be difficult. They´ll need skilled IT people and trainers as well, competing with their customers for talent.
And then, both the major strength *and* weakness of OSS: choice. There´s way too much choice. Which distro? Which office application? Which sql? Which…?
No chance. They migrated a ton of stuff to Microsoft share a few years ago at the Onem. They’re too integrated to Microsoft stuff to switch to office
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