The Estonian state is to analyze how viable it would be to reduce dependence on U.S. tech giants such as Microsoft, Google or Amazon for its software.

This comes at a time when in any case many of the roughly 25,000 government, state and subordinate agencies’ employees’ workstations are being transferred to a new, centrally managed system, overseen by the State IT Center (RIT), including a wholesale transfer to the cloud.

RIT says there are no plans to totally abandon Microsoft — whose Microsoft365 cloud platform is being used by the Estonian state — and the other big-name providers, simply that alternatives are being trialed. Also, a pan-EU decision may necessitate the move away from the U.S. firms.

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The pilot project starts this fall, RIT director Ergo Tars said. “If, for example, it were to happen that Europe and the U.S., for some reason … if a decision were made in the European Union that American products are no longer trusted, then what situation would we be in,” Tars explained.

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RIT is responsible for managing sensitive government and government agency computer workstations, which in any case are transferring over to cloud-based solutions, at the moment mainly using Microsoft 365 components.

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At present, Tars said, there is no magic bullet solution, adding that does not mean development is not quietly under way. Possible real risks are related to Microsoft outages, for instance, although their likelihood is not particularly high, Tars said.

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“There are two aspects to this. One is the tech aspect — how to build the service. The other is user-friendliness. How, in our context, a public servant can cope with that workstation in a situation where there is not a single application they have become familiar with for 20 or 30 years, like Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word and so on. That learning curve is one important point in this test,” Tars said.

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all ministries and their subordinate agencies are due to join the RIT system managed, with only the ministries with the highest degrees of confidentiality: The Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of the Interior and part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to remain outside, thanks to their higher security requirements.

Currently, state agency Statistics Estonia is in the process of joining the system, to be followed immediately by the Social Insurance Board (SKA), then the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture and its subordinate agencies, such as the Agriculture and Food Board (PTA), as well as the Ministry of Climate and its subordinate agency the Environmental Board (Keskkonnaamet).

At present, 53 institutions and around 8,500 workstations are using RIT’s services.

By the end of the year, Tars said, RIT could be managing 12,500 workstations, while over two years, 15,000 out of the government sector’s current 25,000 workstations could move to RIT.

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