3 hours ago
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PUBLIC SECTOR
Government plans another Redmond-only procurement despite calls to consider European rivals
The Irish government has kicked a Microsoft procurement potentially worth €1 billion into touch amid a political debate about the nation's overreliance on US tech providers and a move to free and open source software.
In Ireland's parliament (Dáil Éireann), Frankie Feighan, Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, said the recent tender for suppliers to take part in a framework agreement to supply Microsoft software and services had been canceled after "matters of concern were raised by an interested party."
"Having carefully considered those matters, the [Office of Government Procurement] determined it was prudent to cancel the competition and notify the market accordingly," he said.
The Irish government's current framework, valued at a maximum of €350 million, is set to expire in September 2027.
Cian O'Callaghan, deputy leader of the opposition Social Democrats, said the estimated value range of the proposed replacement had been between €750 million and €1 billion, according to an earlier response in parliament. He challenged the Irish government over whether it had assessed the risks of the new Microsoft framework "at a time when other European countries are moving away from technological dependence on American companies."
O'Callaghan pressed the government on whether it had considered alternatives to Microsoft. "There are a number of alternatives out there that other European countries and states are moving towards," he said. "They are doing so for value-for-money reasons, and so they are no longer technologically dependent on the US but can rely on European-regulated services and products. There is LibreOffice, Collabora Online, Open-Xchange, Nextcloud, Thunderbird and openDesk by Germany's Zentrum für Digitale Souveränität der Öffentlichen Verwaltung, ZenDiS, which is a readily assembled government-grade suite."
Feighan responded that the Irish government was reviewing the operation of the existing framework and talking to experts in the hope that it could improve the "scope, specification, and features" of the framework. However, he acknowledged that the framework covered only Microsoft licenses and services.
O'Callaghan said: "What I do not understand is why alternatives to Microsoft have not been at least explored as part of this process. The German state of Schleswig-Holstein recently moved 30,000 staff from Microsoft to LibreOffice, Linux, Thunderbird, and Open-Xchange. It is saving more than €15 million a year. The French police, the Gendarmerie Nationale, switched over 100,000 desktops to Linux. They will save roughly €500 million, half a billion, over 15 years."
He again pressed the minister on why the government had not considered alternatives to Microsoft, particularly given concerns about digital sovereignty and Ireland's current presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Feighan responded that the government intended to publish a new Microsoft tender "as early as is feasible."
Digital sovereignty has become a pressing issue in Europe since President Trump returned to power, and it was only heightened after Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor, was sanctioned by the US government and later lost access to his work-based Microsoft services.
Microsoft claimed the ICC had removed his access to its services. The Dutch press later reported Microsoft had told the ICC it would have to end services to the whole organization unless the court denied Khan access.
Gartner has estimated investment in sovereign cloud across the EU is set to treble over the next five to seven years as the bloc seeks an exit ramp from dominant US suppliers amid heightened geopolitical tensions. European providers account for only around 15 percent of the region's cloud infrastructure.
The EU has proposed new procurement measures that would require public sector buyers to take digital sovereignty into account when launching tenders. The plans also include procurement guidance intended to encourage greater use of open source alternatives to proprietary software.
Outside the public sector, others are taking an interest in digital sovereignty. Last week, European aerospace giant Airbus announced it was migrating its most critical applications for sensitive workloads from AWS to French cloud provider Scaleway as part of a drive to increase digital sovereignty. ®
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