Schleswig-Holstein when ministries don't take bribes

The state administration of Schleswig-Holstein has taken an important step towards digital sovereignty: After from a six-month conversion process, the Ministry of Digital Affairs completed the migration of the entire state administration email system from Microsoft Exchange and Outlook to the open source solutions Open-Xchange and Thunderbird in early October.

The digital department is talking about a milestone after completing a huge project that involved migrating over 40.000 inboxes with a total of over 100 million emails and calendar entries. From the Chancellery and ministries to the judiciary and state police and other state authorities – around 30.000 employees are now in the world of free software.

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Digitization Minister Dirk Schrödter was relieved after he was recently forced to admit errors in the ongoing migration to open source software in a letter to all civil servants. This was preceded by complaints from the workforce about outages and delays in email traffic.

“We want to become independent of the big tech companies,” Schrödter emphasizes. Now, the public sector can also say: “Mission accomplished” when it comes to email communication.

Windows will be replaced by Linux

The transition is a central element of the state's open source strategy, which has been in preparation for several years. The northern federal state is steadily working towards the goal of a digitally dominant IT workplace. The use of LibreOffice as office software began last year. After the migration of the mail system, MS Office will be gradually removed from all computers in the state.

Schrödter acknowledges the challenge and achievement of the employees:

“We are truly pioneers. We cannot rely on the experience of others - there is hardly any comparable project of this size anywhere in the world.” The head of the department emphasizes the added value for other administrations:

“In the future, we will be able to use our experience from data analysis to data center monitoring to help others and support them as they embark on a path that we are the first to follow right now.”

In September, the Austrian Armed Forces announced the successful transition from Microsoft Office programs to the open-source LibreOffice suite. The decision was made in 2021, although at that time the military was not using Microsoft email solutions, but self-hosted Linux servers with Samba.

The initiative in Schleswig-Holstein also covers other key areas of the state's IT: the Nextcloud software will gradually replace Microsoft SharePoint as the central platform for collaboration between departments.

The state uses OpenTalk for video conferencing. The phone systems will also use open source solutions.

In the long term, the plan is to also replace the Windows operating system on all computers with open source alternatives like Linux.

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