Will Tusk’s government throw away the iconic tool? “Possible paralysis”
Poland is thinking more and more seriously about becoming independent from American technology giants. As revealed by the head of the Central IT Center, Radosław Maćkiewicz, talks are underway on the creation of a national office package for officials. The project would be based on open source solutions and would reduce the state’s huge expenditure on software licenses currently provided mainly by Microsoft.
We are inspired by the attempts made by Denmark
The government is analyzing the possibility of cooperation with several large public entities and private companies. The goal is to build a basic but fully functional office suite for offices that could be developed and maintained as part of a public-private partnership. In such a model, Polish companies would be responsible not only for implementation, but also for long-term support and development of the entire ecosystem.
The inspiration for Polish plans comes from Denmark, where an attempt has already been made to partially replace the commercial Office suite with alternative solutions. Although the project has not been implemented there on a massive scale, the Polish administration considers it an important point of reference. However, there is no specific schedule for now and it is not known when a similar solution could actually reach Polish offices.
The pressure for change has been building for a long time
At the end of last year, the Instrat Foundation warned in its report that as many as 99% of tenders for office software in public administration in practice favor one supplier. The authors of the analysis directly pointed to Microsoft’s monopoly and warned against the consequences of such dependence.
According to experts, the problem is not just about money. Monopoly means not only the risk of a sudden price increase, but also serious systemic threats. Control over key IT infrastructure is located outside the country, which in extreme cases could lead to paralysis of the entire public administration in the event of a failure, withdrawal of the service or a decision by the supplier itself.
The Polish government says one thing but does another
These announcements sound surprising in the context of the events from a year ago. In February, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Microsoft representatives announced ambitious investment plans in Poland, talking about trust and strategic cooperation. Cybersecurity activities were also involved, carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of National Defense.
The American giant also declared that by the end of 2025 it would train up to one million Polish specialists, including IT specialists, teachers, lecturers and programmers, to accelerate the country’s digital transformation. Today’s signals from the administration, however, show that a completely different direction is maturing in parallel – greater technological sovereignty and an attempt to break away from dependence on a single supplier.
