Bavaria’s digital policy at a turning point

The debate surrounding the worrying dependence of German companies and public institutions on US corporations even made it into the ZDF satire show last week „heute show“. And yesterday, Wednesday, Bavarian Radio also asked the question “How free is the Free State?” with regard to its dependence on corporations such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

Expensive and dangerous dependency

The trigger for this is the current criticism of the Future Commission – #Digital Bavaria 5.0. In this commission, the Bavarian Ministry of Finance plans to install a central IT service provider for Bavarian municipalities and force them to use Microsoft’s product range as the only option.

Criticism is directed not only at the approach of bypassing local authorities without consultation or participation, as is usually the case in such situations, but also at how the well-known problems regarding data protection and surveillance are being swept under the carpet. Just a few days ago, Baden-Württemberg’s Ministry of the Interior had to admit that the allegations against Delos were true. The SAP subsidiary, which operates on the basis of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365, could be instructed by the US government to integrate a data leak into its software. Back in July, a Microsoft manager testified under oath that data in European data centers is not safe from US access.

Added to these problems are exorbitantly high costs, dependence on US monopolies, and the undermining of minimum security standards in a radically changing geopolitical situation.

Loss of control also at Atlassian

However, Microsoft’s approach is not an isolated case, but rather describes a fundamental strategy (primarily, but not exclusively, of American software companies) to make companies and public institutions dependent and force them into their own infrastructure.

Four weeks ago, software giant Atlassian (maker of Confluence, Trello, Jira, and other tools) announced that it would be discontinuing its data center licenses in the near future. This means that Atlassian’s most important products, the Jira ticket system and Confluence collaboration software, will only be available in the Atlassian Cloud. Self-hosted on-premises systems are now a thing of the past.

Another typical move: the company is once again drastically increasing its annual license fees. This poses major problems for heavily regulated industries and companies in critical infrastructure (KRITIS, including utilities, information technology, transport and traffic, healthcare, government, and administration): They cannot switch to the cloud and, in some cases, have only recently migrated to an expensive data center system at considerable personnel and financial expense.

But alternatives are available, you just have to want them!

Hallo Welt! GmbH is proud to have been offering an alternative for many years with its BlueSpice product, which, with its enterprise wiki software, is not only a fully-fledged replacement for Confluence, but also a general way out of this predicament. With BlueSpice, the customer decides where and how they want to host the software. As a manufacturer based in Bavaria, the product is fully EU data protection compliant, and its 100% open source strategy minimizes dependence on a single manufacturer.

This puts Hallo Welt! in the company of a whole host of German and European open source providers. Examples include Easy Redmine, OpenProject, Zammad, XWiki, Nextcloud, OpenCloud, B1 Systems AG, SUSE Linux, TUXEDO, and IT Works AG. Quite a few of them are Bavarian companies.

A change in thinking is needed—purchases like these demonstrate a “lack of action”!

But Bavarian open source companies in particular are expressing their displeasure. The announcement that billions more will be invested in Microsoft products, thereby blocking the development of a Bavarian IT industry, has been met with widespread incomprehension. Dr. Richard Heigl, managing director of Hallo Welt! GmbH, is also calling for a rapid rethink:

“Purchasing expensive proprietary products is not digital policy, but a sign of inaction. Avoiding consequences comes at the expense of economic development in Bavaria and at the expense of taxpayers. What is needed is a rapid rethink. Finance ministers are not sales representatives for corporations.”

Hallo Welt! CEO: “Finance ministers are not sales representatives for corporations.”

According to Heigl, the digitization of administration should not be seen as a catch-up modernization, but rather as an active shaping of the future:

“With a fraction of the licensing costs, a little political will, and creative energy, it is possible to build something in Bavaria, in Germany, in Europe that is ahead of its time. But instead of taking the lead with laptops and lederhosen and launching a real “digital turbo” (Digital Minister Mehring), Bavarian state politics is blocking the urgently needed transformation toward the use of digitally sovereign open-source solutions. This goes against common sense in digital policy, as was evident a few weeks ago at the leading trade fair, the Smart Country Convention. Other federal states such as Schleswig-Holstein, other European countries, and municipalities are leading the way, building the necessary capabilities and structures and reaping the long-term economic benefits.

There is a risk of leaving the field to others, as was the case with renewable energies:

“It’s well known that Munich rarely thinks European, but it’s strange that they don’t even think Bavarian. I can hardly think of any other state in Europe that is more toxic for open source companies than Bavaria. Bavaria can do more and must want to do more if it wants to continue playing with the big boys in the future. Open source is a billion-dollar market. The only question is who will serve it in the future and who will profit from it.”