Ireland stalls €1B Microsoft tender amid digital sovereignty questions

Summary

PUBLIC SECTOR Ireland stalls €1B Microsoft tender amid digital sovereignty questions Government plans another Redmond-only procurement despite calls to consider European rivals The Irish government has kicked a Microsoft procurement potentially worth €1 billion into touch amid a political debate about the nation's overreliance on US tech providers and a move to free and open source software. In Ireland's parliament (Dáil Éireann), Frankie Feighan, Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, said the recent tender for suppliers to take part in a framework agreement to supply Microsoft software and services had been canceled after "matters of concern were raised by an interested party.""Having carefully considered those matters, the [Office of Government Procurement] determined it was prudent to cancel the competition and notify the market accordingly," he said. The Irish government's current framework, valued at a maximum of €350 million, is set to expire in September 2027. Cian O'Callaghan, deputy leader of the opposition Social Democrats, said the estimated value range of the proposed replacement had been between €750 million and €1 billion, according to an earlier response in parliament. He challenged the Irish government over whether it had assessed the risks of the new Microsoft framework "at a time when other European countries are moving away from technological dependence on American companies."O'Callaghan pressed the government on whether it had considered alternatives to Microsoft. "There are a number of alternatives out there that other European countries and states are moving towards," he said. "They are doing so for value-for-money reasons, and so they are no longer technologically dependent on the US but can rely on European-regulated services and products. There is LibreOffice, Collabora Online, Open-Xchange, Nextcloud, Thunderbird and openDesk by Germany's Zentrum für Digitale Souveränität der Öffentlichen...