{"id":51508,"date":"2026-04-19T11:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T11:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/51508\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T11:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T11:26:13","slug":"swiss-authorities-want-to-reduce-dependency-on-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/51508\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss authorities want to reduce dependency on Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/597174916_highres.jpg\" width=\"1300\" height=\"867\" alt=\"microsoft logo\" loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"sync\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                Compatible with digital sovereignty? A Microsoft logo pictured in London.            <\/p>\n<p>            Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved        <\/p>\n<p>        The Swiss government is planning a gradual shift away from Microsoft products, according to the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper.\n<\/p>\n<p>            Listen to the article        <\/p>\n<p>            Listening the article        <\/p>\n<p>                Toggle language selector            <\/p>\n<p>                            English (US)                        <\/p>\n<p>                            English (British)                        <\/p>\n<p>            Generated with artificial intelligence.        <\/p>\n<p>        This content was published on    <\/p>\n<p>        April 19, 2026 &#8211; 12:34\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/latest-news\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the Federal Chancellery told the newspaper that the federal administration \u201caims to reduce its dependency on Microsoft step by step and in the long term\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>This comes as a surprise, as Microsoft 365 was only recently installed on some 54,000 workstations despite concerns about data security. Alternatives had previously met with internal resistance and charges of \u201ctinkering\u201d, the NZZ am Sonntag writes.<\/p>\n<p>\n    More<\/p>\n<p>    <img src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/684878370_highres.jpg\" width=\"1300\" height=\"839\" alt=\"Around 75% of companies in Switzerland mainly use AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Copilot for tasks like text generation, coding and data analysis.\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"auto\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        More    <\/p>\n<p>        Swiss AI\n        <\/p>\n<p>        \u2018Switzerland must not give in to the Big Tech narrative\u2019    <\/p>\n<p class=\"teaser-wide-card__excerpt\">\n<p>                        This content was published on                    <\/p>\n<p>                        Nov 12, 2025                    <\/p>\n<p>                Switzerland can be more independent from tech giants like Microsoft when it comes to artificial intelligence, says a leading digital sovereignty expert.            <\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"teaser-wide-card__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/swiss-ai\/switzerland-must-not-give-in-to-the-big-tech-narrative\/90312033\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>            Read more: \u2018Switzerland must not give in to the Big Tech narrative\u2019<br \/>\n    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Germany as a model?<\/p>\n<p>However, former army chief Thomas S\u00fcssli called for alternative solutions to be examined more quickly. A feasibility study now shows that replacement with open-source software is possible. Germany serves as a reference point: there, work is underway on an independent open-source solution in which Switzerland is also interested.<\/p>\n<p>The German state of Schleswig-Holstein has already switched over its administration. Open-source software can be used freely, while it can also be further developed independently of corporations.<\/p>\n<p>Swiss authorities have spent a tidy amount on Microsoft software in recent years: an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.srf.ch\/news\/wirtschaft\/daten-souveraenitaet-die-schweiz-und-ihre-riskante-abhaengigkeit-von-us-it-firmen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">investigation by SRFExternal link<\/a> last year showed that the federal government and cantons spent more than CHF1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) on licences with the tech giant over the past ten years.<\/p>\n<p>                Data security issues            <\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration and its approach to the rule of law are increasing concerns among users of US technology. This is because US law \u2013 according to the 2018 Cloud Act \u2013 allows the government to access all data stored by US tech corporations.<\/p>\n<p>This means that if data is stored on servers or clouds of US firms such as Microsoft, Apple or Adobe \u2013 no matter where in the world \u2013 US authorities may request this data from the US corporations. This could even be the case if the servers are in Switzerland. Users usually know neither which authority is accessing the data nor what is being done with it.<\/p>\n<p>Adapted from German by AI\/dos<\/p>\n<p>                How we work\u00a0            <\/p>\n<p>We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.<\/p>\n<p>If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/swiss-ai\/swiss-authorities-want-to-reduce-dependency-on-microsoft\/mailto:english@swissinfo.ch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">english@swissinfo.ch<\/a><\/p>\n<p>        Articles in this story    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Compatible with digital sovereignty? A Microsoft logo pictured in London. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,9334,100,1812,41,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-51508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-beat-swiss-ai","10":"tag-latest-news","11":"tag-production-type-curation","12":"tag-swiss","13":"tag-switzerland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116431132243420836","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}