FRANKFURT – November 13, 2026 -- Two German states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein, are moving their IT overhaul to open-source software and ending their use of Microsoft, according to a Frankfurter Rundschau commentary published after worldwide disruptions to Microsoft services.
The newspaper's politics desk presents the two states as proof that alternatives to Microsoft already exist. It says open-source, decentralised approaches underpin many foundations of the internet and are not new territory. The text is an opinion piece, not a government statement. It gives no outage date or cause, and no contract values, migration timelines or product names for either state.
The author warns against treating an "EU version" of a large technology group as the solution to digital European sovereignty. A "European Palantir" would be hardly less problematic than the US original, the commentary says.
The author calls on the rest of Germany to start the same work now rather than wait for the next quiet morning without Microsoft notifications.