Schleswig-Holstein Charts a New Course Toward Digital Independence
NEWS
In a bold move toward technological autonomy, Schleswig-Holstein has completed a sweeping transformation of its digital infrastructure, marking a significant milestone in public sector innovation.
A six-month conversion process with more than 40,000 mailboxes with a total of well over 100 million e-mails and calendar entries - Schleswig-Holstein's state administration fully completed the switch of the mail system from Microsoft Exchange and Outlook to the open-source solutions Open-Xchange and Thunderbird on October 2, 2025. Schleswig-Holstein has come a big step closer to the goal of a digitally sovereign IT workplace.
"Mission accomplished"
"From the State Chancellery and the ministries, to the judiciary and state police, to the other state authorities – our approximately 30,000 employees have embarked on a new path together," says Digitization Minister Dirk Schrödter. "We want to become independent of big tech companies and ensure digital sovereignty. Now we can also say in e-mail communication: Mission accomplished."
State IT will be consistently and gradually converted
The consistent, step-by-step conversion process of the state IT was prepared over several years together with the manufacturers and described in the "Open Innovation and Open Source Strategy Schleswig-Holstein". Last year, the country had already started to roll out Libre Office as the new standard office software and replace Microsoft Office. With the current conversion of the mail system, MS Office is now also gradually being uninstalled from the state computers.
Employees are true open source pioneers
"The past weeks and months have shown that such a change is no small thing. We are true pioneers. We cannot fall back on the experience of others – there is hardly a comparable project of this magnitude anywhere in the world," says Minister Schrödter. "The big thanks go to all employees. Without their support, this conversion would not be possible. In the future, we will be able to use our experience from data analysis to monitoring in the data center to help and support others as they embark on the path we are the first to take."
More security, transparency and innovation
The "Open Innovation and Open Source Strategy Schleswig-Holstein" covers other areas of state IT: The Nextcloud software is gradually replacing Microsoft SharePoint as the central platform for collaboration and is already being actively used in numerous administrations. For video conferencing, the state relies on the OpenTalk solution. The use of the Linux operating system as an alternative to Windows is also being tested. Finally, the telephone systems are also to be converted and operated with an open source solution.
"All of these are important building blocks on the way to Schleswig-Holstein's digital sovereignty with more transparency and security for our administration as well as innovative strength for the digital location," says Minister Schrödter. "Schleswig-Holstein has already become more digitally independent, modern and future-proof."