Not really surprising. The people Microsoft wined and dined for the contract are not the same people who agree with Thomas Süssli about reducing the dependency. I look forward to seeing them succeed!
Switzerland could totally be fully computer-independant if they wanted to be.
Anyway I get it - just, odd to think about. Passion accounts for a lot.
I root for it, but it will be difficult.
https://en.libre-office.fr/article.php/libreoffice-calc-free...
give it a go. Ive never had problems for my use case.
Mentioning libreoffice as competitor to Excel and Access is like you haven't understood the market, at all.
Excel is a cross department business automation database, which can sync/pull/push datasets across filesystems and networks.
VBA is the single most used language in Enterprise because it allows to automate pretty much any financial workflow. And more importantly: automated by non-programmers.
Libreoffice is made for private users, and that's not the same users that VBA powered office documents have.
I think a lot of “just use Libre Office” arguments are much like “just use Linux.” There’s a deep misunderstanding of what the value is with Excel. Being technically equivalent with features scores very few points.
I'd also argue that Excel is holding back businesses. Instead of storing information in CSVs (for R or Python processing) or SQL, people rely on it when they shouldn't. It's not just that developers dislike Excel, it's that using it frequently causes huge errors:
https://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-how...
It's a db not a spreadsheet but it's basically the tool I actually needed when I would reach for excel.
It's debatable whether there is a need for the latter in Switzerland though. They have maybe the best fiber network in Europe, which far outperforms anything Satellite-based. You'll regularly get 25 Gb/s symmetrical on residential connections: https://sschueller.github.io/posts/the-free-market-lie/
They got the best fiber and the cheapest. They'd laugh at starlink.
I know a lot of people with Starlink in Schweiz. It's a mountainous country with a strong tradition of outdoorsmanship. From a military preparedness perspective, you're not guiding munitions with terrestrial fibre.
Think about integrating calendars, corporate contacts (from AD), handling RSVP replies said mx server receives and updating the calendar server, securely deal with modern auth (+ legacy krb5 auth, yuk). It's a huge hassle and everything except Exchange only handles 80% of this.
Modern expectations now want: web clients (OWA), todo lists, integrated storage (SP/OneDrive), and push notifications to any phone from any vendor.
So yeah, the only on prem solution is still Exchange.
How do they usually turn out? I have heard Germany/France/? switching to LibreOffice or Linux for some government sector, but I suspect they quietly switch back.
jandrewrogers•1h ago
stynbeck•19m ago
fsflover•12m ago