Defense Picks LibreOffice for Sovereignty

Austria’s armed forces migrated roughly 16,000 workstations from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice, citing digital sovereignty and a refusal to process data in external clouds. The move was planned as Microsoft’s suite shifted cloud‑first, and emphasizes in‑house control over documents and metadata. It shows open‑source suites can meet defense‑grade requirements when cloud dependence is a deal‑breaker. — Military procurement used to avoid foreign cloud dependence signals a broader European shift toward sovereign, on‑prem IT that could reshape the software market and standards.