The authorities of the German state of Hesse failed to replace Microsoft products in 2 thousand schools in the region with an open source analogue that would comply with European privacy standards. In April, the management of Gesse announced its intention to abandon the use of Microsoft Teams. The Ministry of Culture promised to do this by the end of July.
The authorities played out a tender, but later the results were canceled due to the fact that the losing side sued and won. The winner of the competition wanted to challenge the decision in the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt, but this did not lead to the desired result. In view of this, educational institutions continued to use solutions from Microsoft.
The Ministry of Culture insisted that the software be based on web technologies, this will allow the service to be operated on any device and operating system.
Hesse has announced a new tender for the replacement of video conferencing systems in September. This competition called for the abandonment of Microsoft Teams early next year. In December, the procedure was blocked by the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt.
The case referred to the lack of transparency in the requirements for the tender, as well as the lack of a solution for the likely winner of the tender that would completely replace Teams.
The region also wants to replace Microsoft Office, as it poses a threat to the privacy of students and teachers. Officials fear that this information will fall into the possession of the American authorities from data centers.
In November, the authorities of the other German state of Schleswig-Holstein announced that by 2026 the public sector and budgetary institutions will be transferred to open source software. The region says that departments will stop using Office and Teams, and they will also ditch Zoom in favor of the free Jitsy service.
In the summer of 2020, the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party of Germany presented an agreement that provides for the abandonment of Microsoft products on state computers in Hamburg. Officials want to move to open source services.
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