The main takeaway from this episode is that those who want to protect themselves from Trump’s wrath would be wise not to depend on any company in their country. According to Dutch newspaper NRC, the International Criminal Court now uses a German alternative to Microsoft, although it has not officially commented on the switch.
The German alternative, OpenDesk, allows users to send emails, edit text-based documents, create presentations, share files, and make video calls. It is open source, so anyone can view and improve its code.
The same applies to another option from Germany, called NextCloud. This office software has been tested by about 75 researchers from five Dutch universities since the beginning of 2025. Maybe other institutions can also switch to this?
dependency
Dutch higher education is highly dependent on American technology companies, especially Microsoft. Not only do students and staff use its software extensively, but their IT staff is exposed to a wide range of specific Microsoft software. Furthermore, Dutch universities store a lot of data in Microsoft’s cloud.
Dutch lecturers are warning about this. Last Wednesday, DCC-PO, the knowledge center for practice-oriented research, said that the autonomy of Dutch researchers is threatened by the dominance of parties like Google and Microsoft. In his view, universities should adopt more open-source tools and open standards.
In July, the Young Academy also warned that students and staff at Dutch higher education institutions have no idea what tech companies are doing with their data. By outsourcing the management of IT systems, these educational institutions are losing technical knowledge and control. As a result, they are becoming increasingly dependent on big tech, putting academic freedom and independence at risk.
Flickering
Seven Dutch universities and one university college are already on the state of Florida’s sanctions list for breaking or ending ties with Israeli institutions. With an unstable president like Donald Trump, educational institutions may also face “penalties” at any time.
However, can they work without Microsoft? Can they do without Office, Outlook, Teams, and OneDrive? According to UU professors Jos van Dijk and Albert Meijer, not yet. “All research and education will come to an immediate halt,” he wrote in an open letter in March, calling on the executive board to do something about digital dependency.
According to professors, Utrecht University relies exclusively on Microsoft Office 365. UU staff and students use the program for email and video calls, writing and sharing documents, creating presentations, and storing data, among other tasks. Such dependence creates vulnerabilities “especially in light of the rapidly changing geopolitical situation”.
Meijer and Van Dijk believe that “dependence on big technology is fundamentally contrary to public values such as freedom, independence, autonomy and equality”. The professor would like the executive board to invest more in “local expertise”, for example, by using its own mail servers. They also recommend collaborating with other European universities, especially those in Germany and France, “on an autonomous academic IT infrastructure.”
breaking free
It is becoming clear that reliance on big tech creates risks. According to Vladimir Mufti of SURF, the IT cooperative of Dutch education and research institutions, this also applies to Dutch higher education. “We have already gone through a period of awareness that lasted several years. We have seen where the dependencies are, and now it is time to start trying alternatives.”
Mufti is SURF’s Digital Sovereignty Program Manager. Late last year, he sat down with five universities that wanted a single, shared digital environment for their research program, AlgoSoc. Scientists from Delft, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Tilburg and Amsterdam (UVA) wanted to be able to use the same appointment planner, share files, work together on the same texts and make video calls without relying on a large provider. Mufti suggested an open source software package from NextCloud.
One of the users, Jacqueline Kernahan, a PhD student from TU Delft, thinks that NextCloud can compete with Microsoft, although there are still some glitches here. She is not deterred by these, because she knows how problematic dependence on Microsoft is.
She demonstrates the software in the hall of her faculty in Delft. This looks very normal. “The word processor is pretty good,” says Kernahan, who is pursuing a PhD in quality and security control in digital systems. “I’m an average user, so I don’t need all the options and apps the program offers. But, honestly, Microsoft is making it increasingly tempting to switch. Now that the company is putting AI into everything, it’s becoming more annoying to have to use everything.”
Still, Mufti believes that not all educational institutions will be able to switch to OpenDesk or Nextcloud overnight. “The Criminal Court now has to act quickly, under pressure, but if a university wanted to walk away from Microsoft tomorrow, that would cause problems.”
critical condition
Meanwhile, Microsoft is doing more and more. In addition to office software, it also develops artificial intelligence, builds its own data centers and even lays its own Internet cables on the seabed. The company is “vertically integrated”, as experts call it: everything from basic technology to end users can be done through one company.
and that’s not all. Microsoft is also expanding “horizontally” by acquiring companies where content rather than technology is the primary focus. “This is a new phase, which I find worrying,” says Mufti. For example, Microsoft bought LinkedIn, whose millions of active users produce huge amounts of data, and GitHub, where software developers can share and store their work.
SURF is keeping a close eye on these developments. Mufti says, “I would like our education to remain public and be able to pursue public values such as autonomy, independence and academic freedom. IT should be helpful, not controlling.”
He views the collaboration between Microsoft and Sanoma with suspicion. The Finnish publisher, which also serves the Dutch education market through its Malmburg subsidiary, wants to make its learning content available through Microsoft Teams. Microsoft will then add its own “learning accelerators”, i.e. artificial intelligence designed to help personalize the learning process. “Things like this sometimes keep me awake at night,” Mufti said with a sigh.
optional
Dutch and European options exist. For example, research institute TNO is working with SURF and the Netherlands Forensic Institute on its own AI language models. There are also dedicated data centers.
Additionally, SURFConext is moving forward with a secure login service. Mufti explains, “But this is not enough. If logging in through Microsoft does not work for any reason in the future, we will have a big problem. This also applies to applications that are not from Microsoft.”
In his view, we need serious alternatives. When necessary, one should not start from zero. Furthermore, competition ensures that the market leader cannot charge top dollar.
But which educational institution is willing to sacrifice itself to run those options, with all the teething problems involved, when Microsoft can provide everything ready-made? Mufti believes that, especially in the beginning, educational institutions will have to run two systems in parallel, with additional expenses on support, maintenance and security. “But in my opinion, no sector is as value-driven as education and research. This is where alternatives should be able to get off the ground.”
rector
In 2019, rectors of fourteen universities jointly published a compelling argument about the digital freedom of Dutch higher education. The gist was that we risk losing control of Google and Microsoft.
According to Jacqueline Scherpen, rector of the University of Groningen, there has been little improvement since then. “The coronavirus pandemic hit just months after that article was published. We became even more dependent on big tech because we didn’t have time to explore alternatives.” For example, Microsoft Teams has become indispensable.
Sherpen is the portfolio holder for digital sovereignty within UNL, the student union of Dutch universities. She advocates taking small steps: “If we choose an alternative product now that works less well, students and staff will start using the free programs, and we will move further away from our goal.”
Furthermore, Sherpen says we need legislation to protect European alternatives to big tech. Suppose a university partners with a European competitor of Microsoft, and then Microsoft buys that company, what is the university to do?
This is not a theoretical scenario. She mentions Solvency, a Dutch software company that integrates with government services like DigiD and provides secure communications for the Ministry of Justice. Now an American company wants to take over it.
Sherpen: “Perhaps we need to become more protectionist without hindering the free exchange of new insights and innovations. We must ensure that the freedom we are fighting for does not slip away from us again.”
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