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Saxony-Anhalt: Over 4 million euros spent on Windows 11 conversion!
Saxony-Anhalt is investing over four million euros in the switch to Windows 11, despite high costs and security risks.
Saxony-Anhalt: Over 4 million euros spent on Windows 11 conversion!
In Saxony-Anhalt, the switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11 has presented public administration with significant financial challenges. According to a report by MDR The costs amount to over four million euros. This sum includes expenses for new hardware and license fees that were made necessary by Microsoft's higher system requirements.
A request to numerous municipalities, independent cities, districts and state ministries shows that only 55 of 119 surveyed bodies provided feedback, suggesting that the actual costs could be even higher. Around 3.7 million euros were invested in new devices alone, as many administrations in Saxony-Anhalt rely on more modern technology to cope with the software.
Change in practice
The Harz district, for example, invested 160,000 euros in the changeover. Although many students already work with an open source operating system, the costs of the technical changes are still putting pressure on the administration's budget. In addition, in cities such as Dessau-Roßlau and the districts of Stendal, Anhalt-Bitterfeld and Wittenberg, around 1,000 old devices have to be sorted out. Some municipalities are being creative and donating or testing alternative operating systems on the discarded devices.
Criticism of the high costs
Experts express concerns about the high investments in new hardware and the dependence on Microsoft. Frederik Kramer, a professor of information systems, points out that open source operating systems such as Linux do not need to be purchased every five years, which could lead to cost savings in the long term. The license fees for the switch to Windows 11 in Saxony-Anhalt are already at least 400,000 euros, plus an additional 1.2 million euros for the 26,000 jobs in the state administration. TheMunichEye reports that the Ministry of Infrastructure and Digital has confirmed the annual license costs regardless of the version of Windows used.
In a comparison, the federal government spent over one billion euros on Microsoft licenses in 2023, which illustrates the extent of the dependence on proprietary software. Schleswig-Holstein, on the other hand, is taking a different approach and implementing a complete switch to open source in order to strengthen digital sovereignty.
The switch to Windows 11 has not only technical but also financial consequences for the administrations in Saxony-Anhalt, which are urgently looking for solutions to get costs under control while at the same time meeting modern requirements.