Pilot Project Termination

Denmark’s Ministry of Digitization, now known as the Ministry for Research, Education, and Digitization, has reportedly concluded its experiment to replace Microsoft Office with an open-source alternative. A pilot project, launched in 2025, involved 38 employees transitioning to the British open-source Collabora office suite from Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Reasons for Failure

The experiment was initiated by former Digitization Minister Caroline Stage, aiming to reduce Denmark’s reliance on American technology. Similar initiatives have been seen in France and the Netherlands regarding Microsoft Windows. However, the Danish pilot reportedly ended within six months, coinciding with an early election in February 2026. Employees cited numerous issues, including problems with style, paragraph formatting, unexpected blank pages, and difficulties with tracking changes.

Lack of Evaluation

Despite the experiment reportedly concluding months ago, Professor Mikkel Flyberbom of the Copenhagen Business School expressed concern that the project has not been properly evaluated. He stated that while testing alternatives in a pilot project is a good idea, the ministry should learn from the experience and share insights with the broader public sector.

Alternative Software Choices

The chosen Microsoft Office alternative needed to integrate with the Ministry of Digitization’s central case management system, F2. However, the decision to exclusively test Collabora remains unclear. While Collabora is built on LibreOffice, a prominent open-source alternative, other options like OnlyOffice, OpenOffice, and Calligra were available. Recent efforts to create AI-driven open-source versions of subscription software like Microsoft 365 exist, but governments typically prioritize stable and reliable builds over experimental applications.

Lessons for Future Initiatives

The Danish government's exclusive focus on open-source Microsoft Office alternatives in its testing remains a point of discussion. A more comprehensive approach, involving multiple teams testing various alternatives followed by a thorough review, might have yielded better results. However, this discussion is now largely academic given the apparent failure of the open-source experiment.