European organizations, particularly in public sector and regulated industries, are “evaluating an exit strategy from the US-owned productivity suites like Microsoft Office,” said Dario Maisto, senior analyst at Forrester.
“Organizations are mainly moved by a desire to improve their digital sovereignty posture, escape vendor lock-in, and have a ready alternative to avoid costly price increases from one enterprise agreement renewal to the other,” Maisto said.
Gartner has seen increased interest in non-US office productivity software among its European clients over the past year, according to VP analyst Nikos Drakos — “especially from public-sector organizations, sensitive industries, critical infrastructure, and international organizations. However, the lack of complete and mature solutions, especially in Europe, means that actual full migrations are only being considered by very high-risk organizations. In most of the rest of the cases, it is more about weighing up options, and limited implementations,” he said.
