ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Netherlands has stopped a government agency’s move to Microsoft 365.
- The drive for an open-source, digital sovereignty approach continues.
- What Holland will move to next is rather vague.
The Dutch tax and customs administration has abandoned its planned Microsoft 365 public cloud rollout.
For what? The reasons were clear at the Open Source Summit Europe conference, where the Linux Foundation (LF) released the 2026 State of Open Source in Europe. In doing so, the nonprofit, pro-open-source organization revealed that 94% of European Union (EU) organizations say digital sovereignty is important, with 61% considering it very important. As Thierry Carrez, the Linux Foundation Europe GM, said in his keynote: “Europe has clearly heard the message about digital sovereignty.”
Holland is not alone
However, it is not only the Dutch tax collectors. Holland is also exploring the switch from Windows and proprietary software to Linux and open-source programs everywhere. This follows the Swiss military and other agencies announcing that they are moving to Linux and openDesk, a German open-source office suite. Previously, European governments that switched to Linux included Austria, France, Germany and Ireland.
Also: Digital Sovereignty at the UN: Inside the Global Push to Replace US Cloud Giants with Open-Source Tech
In fact, according to the LF Europe report, 94% of organizations care about AI as much as about digital sovereignty. We all know how businesses are moving to AI as quickly as possible. Outside the states, the move to digital sovereignty is getting just as much support.
The Netherlands had planned to switch to Microsoft 365 in 2025. The idea then was to complete the rollout by the end of 2026. About 5,000 employees had already migrated when the Dutch Advisory Board on ICT Assessment recommended reversing the Public Cloud rollout in June. The government stopped the plan in July; the latest announcement replaces this rollout with an on-premises/open-source approach.
The Tax and Customs Administration is not replacing all of Microsoft Office with a single open source suite, at least not yet. Instead, the government will keep the existing Microsoft software for now.
In advance, the State Secretary for Finance Eelco Eerenberg presented the replacement plan in a letter to the chamber: “In 2027, the provision for mail and calendar will be realized on the spot. Later in 2027 and 2028, European open-source solutions for personal storage and collaboration will also come. This will allow us to work on these more autonomous solutions for a sustainable and sustainable solution.”
Why the Netherlands withdrew
The ICT assessment found that the chosen Microsoft 365 public-cloud design fell short on “information security, information processing and future-proofing”. Another important concern was the preservation of data confidentiality and control. In particular, the ICT assessment raised concerns about sending confidential documents via American servers rather than the government networks previously used.
The Dutch government is also concerned about the encryption of 365. The proposed 365 setup relied on standard Microsoft encryption instead of Double Key Encryption. That would have given the administration more control.
Another concern was that end-to-end encryption would not be enabled by default for one-to-one Teams calls. This concerned the Dutch government for a long time. Additionally, it would not have been available for group calls under the chosen configuration. These were criticisms of the deployment design, not claims that every Microsoft 365 configuration has identical disadvantages.
Also: Do you have a Microsoft 365 subscription? Your storage is about to shrink
Finally, the assessment identified vendor lock-in, reduced flexibility, concerns about digital sovereignty, and the absence of an adequate exit strategy as showstopping issues. In my opinion, based on my coverage of the European Union’s push for digital sovereignty, they don’t trust American companies under the current US government.
What’s next
For now, the local email/calendar environment will still use Microsoft software, including Outlook. The open-source part concerns personal storage and collaboration, not a wholesale replacement of Word, Excel, PowerPoint or the entire desktop environment.
What exactly will that look like? We don’t know yet. No specific open-source programs or software stacks have been chosen yet. What we do know, however, is that other Dutch government agencies have begun to develop Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid (DAWO), which translates to “Digital Autonomous Work Environment for Government.” DAWO starts by replacing the Windows desktop with the Dutch Linux distribution NixOS.
Also: 98% of IT leaders want digital sovereignty: Now SUSE is operationalizing it for companies everywhere
In addition to NixOS, France’s La Suite and Germany’s OpenDesk are being considered for the desktop suite. Another possibility is that the Netherlands will move to a homebrew of MijnBureau. This self-hosted suite combines open-source projects, including Nextcloud for storage and collaboration, Collabora for office documents, Element for messaging, and OpenProject for work management. This is more of a ready-to-run office suite than what I call a Dutch agency, out-of-scratch “Dutch Office” suite.
Nevertheless, while the replacement details remain foggy, the Dutch tax authorities canceled the Microsoft 365 cloud rollout for an on-premises email/groupware suite, followed by a full-fledged open-source office suite.