Danish Government silently drops plan to dump MS Office

The Danish government is sticking with Microsoft Office, meaning no immediate change in software procurement for Danish public sector IT.

The Danish Digitalization Agency has quietly abandoned a pilot project to test an open-source alternative to Microsoft Office. Launched in the summer of 2025, the project involved approximately 40 employees testing Collabora, an open-source system supplied by Danish company cBrain, as a replacement for the agency's extensive use of Microsoft Office. The agency has now decided to discontinue this initiative, opting to continue with its existing Microsoft software. The decision to drop the pilot, which was intended to explore alternatives to proprietary software, was not publicly announced.

The Danish government's decision to abandon its open-source Office pilot signals a continued reliance on established vendors, particularly Microsoft, within the public sector. This move suggests that the perceived benefits or the practical implementation of open-source alternatives in a large governmental setting may not have met expectations. It also implies that the significant investment and established infrastructure around Microsoft's ecosystem remain a formidable barrier for competing solutions in this segment.

This outcome could impact future government procurement strategies, potentially leading to less exploration of open-source alternatives in large-scale projects due to the perceived risks or complexities. For vendors like cBrain and the broader open-source community, it highlights the challenges in displacing dominant proprietary software in government contracts, even with pilot programs designed to evaluate their viability. The focus may shift to smaller, more niche implementations or specific departmental needs rather than agency-wide replacements.