Europe is moving decisively away from U.S. tech giants toward open-source alternatives, driven by concerns over digital sovereignty and reliability of American companies[1]. At the 2025 OpenInfra Summit Europe, industry leaders emphasized that this shift isn’t about isolation but resilience.
“What we’re really looking for is resilience. What we want for our countries, for our companies, for ourselves, is resilience in the face of unforeseen events in a fast-changing world. Open source allows us to be sovereign without being isolated,” said OpenInfra Foundation general manager Thierry Carrez[1:1].
This transition is already happening. The German state Schleswig-Holstein has replaced Microsoft Exchange and Outlook with open-source email solutions. Similar moves have been made by the Austrian military, Danish government organizations, and the French city of Lyon[1:2].
European companies are stepping up to fill the gap with open-source alternatives, including:
- Deutsche Telekom’s Open Telekom Cloud
- OVHcloud’s sovereign cloud services
- STACKIT and VanillaCore’s European-based offerings[1:3]
The movement gained additional momentum when the European Commission appointed its first executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy in 2024[1:4].
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Maybe that EU kept MS&co in check?
That’s not how I see it, but there was some minimal resistance.
Anyways, open sauce means tech giants are gonna illegally yoink the code, but slap some profit margins on (besides support that is).
That does sux the even more out of users.
They didn’t necessarily keep them in check, but maybe kept growth slower Initially. However this is not my area, so take it with as much salt as you’d like.