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This article is based on remarks gathered from Benjamin André, Strategic Director of Twake at LINAGORA.
At the latest FOSDEM in Brussels, Benjamin André (Strategic Director of Twake for LINAGORA) shared a disturbing observation: Europe has never had so many high‑quality collaborative digital solutions… yet its dependence on Microsoft 365 continues to grow. How can this paradox be explained? Why does the argument of “there are no alternatives” still dominate strategic decisions, even though the open‑source and European ecosystem has reached an unprecedented level of maturity? The answer does not lie solely in technology, but in the way we think, or rather, have not yet thought, about the notion of a work platform.
1. A dependency that has become critical
European dependence on Microsoft 365 is no longer merely a technical or budgetary issue. It has become strategic, industrial, and deeply political.
Over the years, Microsoft’s collaborative suite has embedded itself at the heart of daily workflows: email, documents, remote meetings, file sharing, work organization. This omnipresence has created a progressive lock‑in effect. The more the ecosystem is intertwined with internal practices, the harder it becomes, financially, technically, and humanly, to break out. Migrations are no longer seen as projects; they are seen as risks.
This lock‑in raises not only cost questions. It also challenges data sovereignty, subject to extraterritorial legal frameworks, and the ability of European organisations to master their digital tools in the long term. Product road‑maps, integration choices, and technological directions are decided elsewhere, while they permanently shape local information systems.
Microsoft 365 has thus become a de‑facto infrastructure. In this context, one sentence repeatedly resurfaces in tenders and strategic meetings: “There is no alternative.” Really?
2. Mature alternatives… but fragmented
When each need is examined separately, the landscape has fundamentally changed. Europe and the open‑source ecosystem now offer robust solutions for email, video‑conferencing, collaborative document editing, and file sharing. These tools have gained ergonomics, performance, and large‑scale deployment capabilities. They are no longer experimental; they are production‑ready in demanding environments.
A major accelerator adds to this dynamic: artificial intelligence. AI reshuffles the cards by letting smaller teams quickly integrate advanced features. Where size was once a decisive advantage, it can become a hindrance when architectures are too heavyweight and evolution cycles too slow. The functional gap between large proprietary suites and alternatives is therefore shrinking far faster than imagined.
Yet, despite this maturity, decisions rarely swing. The reason is simple: a set of good tools does not automatically constitute a coherent work platform. Solutions exist, but they are still too often perceived (and sometimes designed) as independent building blocks. They coexist more than they cooperate.
This is precisely where the “there is no alternative” narrative finds fertile ground. Not because the tools are insufficient, but because they do not yet form a readable, integrated whole in the eyes of decision‑makers.
3. The real lock: the lack of orchestration
A common analytical error is to think that a simple SSO is enough to turn a collection of applications into a platform. In reality, linking tools through a common authentication does not create a unified work experience. It yields a catalogue of services, not an integrated environment.
The strength of large platforms stems less from the isolated quality of each brick than from their orchestration. Identities, permissions, notifications, documents, and workflow streams flow smoothly from one service to another. The user does not feel constantly switching tools; they operate within a continuum.
Without this orchestration layer, alternatives appear more fragmented, thus more complex to deploy at scale. This very observation fueled the discussion presented at FOSDEM 2026 by Benjamin André for LINAGORA and Samuel Paccoud, Director of the Digital Suite backed by DINUM. From the integration work of the Digital Suite within the Twake environment, an idea emerged: what the ecosystem lacks is not a new application, but an orchestration standard.
Open Buro was born from this conviction. Its goal is not to create another proprietary platform, but to lay the foundations of an open standard that enables independent services to assemble into a truly coherent workplace. Each brick can continue to exist, innovate, and evolve autonomously while fitting into a common framework of functional integration and interoperability.
The approach is accompanied by a commitment to open governance, carried by a foundation, to prevent capture by a single actor. The ambition mirrors that of web standards: to create a shared space where different players can build together, rather than being locked in proprietary silos.
With Open Buro, the aim is therefore not to reproduce a closed integrated model, but to invent a federated, interoperable, and sustainable alternative capable of fostering a genuine European workplace ecosystem.
Conclusion
The ecosystem of alternatives to M365 is rich but offers only partial and fragmented solutions. The question now is whether we can collectively orchestrate our applications to deliver a “smart platform experience” that serves our users’ productivity.
It is a collective challenge that goes beyond individual vendors, integrators, and administrations. It requires a new standard, shared governance, and a long‑term vision of European digital sovereignty.
The work undertaken around Open Buro represents a concrete first step in that direction. The discussion, launched at FOSDEM 2026, has already begun to bring together new actors and to spark collaborations—public entities, CIOs, and software publishers alike.
The full video of the presentation can be found here
