That, and it's solid, well supported software most people are familiar with.
From those doing the paperwork with Microsoft procurement for Dutch government I learned there have been legal disputes going on for years about what even constitutes "telemetry". That was a decade ago, and even then there was push to move away from Microsoft in the government. Toward open source, or even Oracle.
I suppose that with the Dutch being Dutch all the lobbying M$ needed was suggesting a discount.
The main problem is that 365 is just far cheaper than the competitors for environments like this, maintaining and supporting an open source alternative would be an incredibly expensive undertaking.
Yes, but to get something nearly as good as 365 would realistically cost 100x as much as just buying from Microsoft.
Who would you even hire to do this? A big consulting firm known for delivering poor quality software, or an unproven startup? What kind of a process could you use to make such a selection in a way that would ensure a good outcome?
It’s the same as the old libreoffice vs. MS office debate. Yeah, you can download libreoffice for free. It sucks. What sucks even more though is how much money you will spend on support, training and all the inevitable productivity losses associated with weird software that approximately nobody you hire will have experience with.
But these are "European Tenders", which in practice usually translates to: race-to-the-bottom. Unless the tender was phrased specifically, from its very first inception, to aim at some polical goal - like open source, sovereignty, innovation, inclusiveness, etc.
From those doing the paperwork with Microsoft procurement for Dutch government I learned there have been legal disputes going on for years about what even constitutes "telemetry". That was a decade ago, and even then there was push to move away from Microsoft in the government. Toward open source, or even Oracle.
I suppose that with the Dutch being Dutch all the lobbying M$ needed was suggesting a discount.