# Collabora clarifies Danish ministry pilot was volunteer test, not Microsoft replacement

> **Key takeaway:** Collabora's statement reveals the Danish digitalization ministry pilot ended due to bureaucratic reorganization rather than technical failure, though interoperability issues with Microsoft Office formats were documented.

**Published:** 2026-10-31T12:03:47+00:00 
**Source:** It's FOSS Community News 
**Category:** distro-news 
**Canonical URL:** https://fosswire.org/news/collabora-clarifies-danish-ministry-pilot-was-volunteer-test.html 

## Summary
Collabora has published its own account of a Danish government pilot that media coverage, including It's FOSS, had characterized as Denmark moving away from Microsoft Office. The pilot, which began in June 2025, involved volunteers in one department of the Danish digitalization ministry using Collabora instead of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, integrated into cBrain's F2 case and document management system. The ministry consistently described this as a test with no decision to phase out Microsoft, and testers reported issues including blank documents from other agencies, problematic track changes, and odd line spacing.

The pilot ended without formal evaluation, with conflicting explanations: the ministry cited an election call interrupting the project, while Collabora points to the June 2025 reorganization that merged the digitalization ministry into the research and education ministry, leaving the pilot without institutional support. Collabora notes its engineers resolved tester tickets at their own expense, and that the experience is informing ongoing work with other Danish authorities and cBrain. The current minister has disclaimed knowledge of why the project ended without proper evaluation.

## What the Danish pilot actually tested and where it ended
- **Scope and integration:** The pilot involved cBrain integrating Collabora into its F2 case and document management system for a single department's volunteer testers, not a government-wide deployment.
- **Document interoperability issues:** Testers encountered blank documents from other government agencies, difficult-to-accept track changes, and anomalous line spacing when handling Microsoft Office formats.
- **Bug resolution process:** Collabora states its engineers resolved tickets raised by testers and self-funded that support work during the pilot period.
- **Institutional termination:** The pilot lost its organizational home when the digitalization ministry was dissolved and merged into the research and education ministry in June 2025, before the scheduled October evaluation workshop.
- **Ongoing relationship:** Collabora indicates the pilot experience is carrying forward into work with other Danish authorities and continued collaboration with cBrain.

## Why it matters
This clarification matters for the open-source office suite ecosystem because it corrects a narrative that set unrealistic expectations for government migration timelines while highlighting genuine interoperability friction points with dominant document formats. For Linux desktop advocates and public-sector open-source proponents, the case illustrates how organizational politics and procurement continuity can derail technical pilots regardless of software quality, and underscores the need for sustained institutional commitment alongside format compatibility work.