The German federal government currently pays €481 million in licensing fees to #Microsoft every year.

[naturemc@mastodon.online]

@txtx Some Federal Governments leave these dependencies. Best example is Schleswig-Holstein with Linux and the Fediverse. https://www.schleswig-holstein.de/DE/landesregierung/ministerien-behoerden/I/_startseite/Artikel2026/I/260210_mastodon
The EU is also preparing more independence, f.e. with Qant and Ecosia cooperating for a European search machine. Other countries are introducing Linux (in France even for parts of the military).
@ilumium @zendis

[jabgoe2089@hub.netzgemeinde.eu]

@Jan Penfrat and that is only the federal bill for m$. there are 16 länder with m$ bills, practically all municipalities ....

m$ get much more than only than 500mio € from german administrations ...

[proteus@troet.cafe]

@ilumium
Gibt bestimmt Kickback Zahlungen ...

[frederik@ohai.social]

@ilumium @zendis already did build something to use and share: #openDesk. It incorporates #Nextcloud, #Jitsi, nubus+#Keycloak (Identity Management), openExchange and more.

It's not that there is no viable alternative. It's that there is too little will to use it.

[ilumium@eupolicy.social]

@frederik Yes, I know. Do you know what their annual budget is? Hint: it's below €481 million.

[frederik@ohai.social]

@ilumium From what I found it's actually 0€. Which is probably why they (have to) charge a whoppin' 20.000€ per year for the cheapest support plan (hosted on your own servers). Infeasible for anything below 100+ users.

[ftranschel@norden.social]

@ilumium @zendis Not only @zendis ...

[ftranschel@norden.social]

@decebal07 @ilumium @zendis While I appreciate your clear language, I think the list can be extended quite a bit... and then it doesn't seem quite as simple as your statement implies.

(Disclaimer: I sure would appreciate these tax funds being appropriated... more sensibly.)

[donhawkins@mastodon.social]

@ilumium @bmacDonald94 @zendis Seems an obvious, quick & easy way to improve “gubbermint” budgeting. #DumpMicrosoft

[jwcph@helvede.net]

@ilumium @zendis Denmark just renewed a Microsoft + cloud deal (MS, AWS, Google) of about 150 million per year over the next 5 years - notably, in a country with less than 1/10th the population of Germany.

Pretty sure we can also afford building something better if it can save us that kind of money...