Polish administration systematically favors Microsoft. “99% of tenders excluded competition”

Microsoft has gained an almost monopolistic position within the Polish administration – this is the central thesis of the report prepared by the Instrat Foundation. The organization examined 72 public tenders. According to the report, although the procurements are formally open, in practice they create a closed system. They reinforce Microsoft’s monopoly and, in the analysts’ view, block market access for domestic and European suppliers.

The findings are stark. Of the 72 tender procedures analyzed, 99% directly or indirectly excluded products other than those offered by Microsoft. Only one – run by the Fryderyk Chopin National Institute – was deemed not to favor Microsoft. In 20% of the procurements, the exclusion of competitors was explicit.

Openness on paper only

Poland’s Public Procurement Law explicitly prohibits naming trademarks unless they are accompanied by the formula “or equivalent.” In practice, however, as Instrat’s analysis shows, such equivalence is largely fictitious. Contracting authorities routinely draft specifications in a way that only Microsoft software can meet – even when alternative solutions are formally permitted.

Of the 72 procedures analyzed:

• 14 explicitly named Microsoft products as the subject of the contract,
• 57 used indirect methods to exclude competitors,
• only one procedure did not favor Microsoft.

In total, the foundation reviewed 301 procurement notices published on the eZamówienia (eprocurement) platform in 2025. Of these, 72 concerned office software.

How the administration supports Microsoft

Instrat’s analysts point out that most of the requirements that, in practice, restrict competition are non-substantive in nature.

One of the most common conditions is the requirement that all components of an office suite come from a single vendor. In practice, this eliminates the possibility of combining open, free tools – such as LibreOffice, Thunderbird, or Nextcloud – which are functionally comparable to Microsoft’s solutions but are developed by different providers.

By way of example, one tender required not only word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software, but also a personal information management application (email and contacts) and note-taking software featuring a self-learning OCR system – all bundled within a single suite.

“The requirement for handwriting recognition via a stylus appears to be a fictitious one, given that it is also imposed on software for desktop computers, not tablets,” the analysis notes.

In practice, only Microsoft offers such a package.

Unusual practices that discriminate against Microsoft’s competitors

Another example is the requirement for compatibility with Active Directory, Microsoft’s proprietary solution. Although Active Directory is built on open protocols (LDAP and Kerberos), it is itself a closed technology that does not support solutions developed outside the Microsoft ecosystem. As a result, this requirement effectively replaces one trademark reference with another.

It explicitly excludes, among others, the LibreOffice suite. According to the analysts, the requirement is also absurd and, in reality, imposed by Microsoft itself.

“In one illustrative procedure, the following functional requirement appears: ‘a user who logs in once at the level of the workstation’s operating system should be automatically recognized across all modules of the offered solution, without being separately prompted to re-authenticate.’ The point is that open-source software does not require authentication at all, because it does not verify whether a user holds a license. The requirement for compatibility with Active Directory is therefore imposed by Microsoft itself,” the analysts write.

What is more, other functions provided by Active Directory – such as managing access to files stored in a local cloud – can also be replaced with packages of alternative, open, free software, such as Samba or Nextcloud.

A particularly striking example of discrimination, the foundation writes, is the requirement to support VBScript – a technology that Microsoft itself is officially phasing out. Even so, in 2025 this requirement appeared in 13 procurement procedures.

There are also criteria related to the user interface, such as demands for identical naming of functions or even the presence of “3D elements.” Provisions of this kind have no bearing on the efficiency of civil servants’ work, but they effectively eliminate competing solutions.

Vendor lock-in as a systemic problem for the state

From the perspective of public administration, such an approach is often justified by convenience, operational continuity, and risk mitigation. Over the longer term, however, it leads to vendor lock-in – making the entire state apparatus dependent on a single supplier.

The consequences of this dependence are multidimensional. First, the state loses control over costs. A monopolist’s pricing decisions are not subject to genuine competitive pressure. Second, systemic resilience is weakened – both technologically and geopolitically. Third, the administration is forced into costly hardware and software migrations when the supplier unilaterally ends support for older solutions.

“The first and most obvious effect is the risk of a sudden increase in prices. A monopolist does not have to fear customers switching to competitors. But we should also be concerned about other risks, because it is an American corporation, not the Polish government, that controls a lion’s share of Poland’s technological infrastructure. And it can simply switch it off,” comments the report’s author, Dr. Jarosław Kopeć.

The foundation identifies three core risks. The first is the risk of system fragmentation if, for example, a supplier withdraws from providing or updating a given type of software. This risk applies equally to the supply of software itself.

The second risk is the potential to hold users hostage, forcing them to incur additional costs.

“We are witnessing this in the case of operating systems. The end of support for Windows 10, which Microsoft announced for late 2025, and the requirement for users to upgrade to Windows 11, in practice means the need to replace hardware in many workplaces – even though, were it not for the supplier’s policy, these devices could continue to be used for years,” the analysts write.

The third risk is the narrowing of future choices to more advantageous options. A kind of procurement domino effect emerges. Institutions that already run systems based on Microsoft software will prefer to bear the cost of renewing licenses, even when free alternatives are available.

An economy that loses out

Microsoft’s monopoly in public procurement also translates into forgone development gains for Poland and the European Union. As Instrat notes, public money does not support the growth of local capabilities, innovation, or the broader technology ecosystem.

Instrat’s report shows that Poland is not condemned to the current model. In many European countries, public administrations are actively moving away from dependence on Microsoft in favor of open-source software.

Lyon is building its own open-source-based office suite, fully funding the project with a view to supporting local companies. Denmark has announced the migration of central government administration to LibreOffice, citing security and sovereignty concerns. Austria and the German state of Schleswig-Holstein are rolling out solutions based on Linux and locally managed cloud infrastructure.

In each of these cases, public procurement has become an instrument of deliberate state policy, rather than merely a technical purchasing procedure.

How Microsoft is expanding in Poland

On February 17, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and vice chair, met Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw. It was the second such visit by a senior representative of an American technology giant in February, following a visit by Google’s chief executive.

During the meeting, Brad Smith pledged major investments in Poland.

“Exactly USD 700 million - PLN 2.8 billion, around EUR 650 million – that is the investment confirmed by Microsoft’s leadership. It is a continuation of the first phase, which was completed in 2023,” Donald Tusk said at the time.

As the prime minister also declared, Microsoft is to “engage in Poland’s security in a physical sense.”

In Poland, Microsoft’s presence goes beyond selling services and products. The company operates data processing centers under the Azure Poland Central unit. Dedicated facilities were launched in 2023 at three locations in the vicinity of Warsaw. The USD 1 billion investment – around PLN 4 billion, roughly EUR 930 million – is intended to accelerate the digital transformation of Polish companies and public institutions.

In November, Microsoft also announced an expansion of artificial intelligence training programs in Poland. The company signed an agreement with the Ministry of National Education covering initiatives for teachers, students, and public administration. Over the coming year, Microsoft aims to train several hundred thousand people – teachers, students, and public-sector employees. The company says participants will be able to obtain AI competency credentials with real value on the labor market.

Key Takeaways

1. Dependence of the state administration on a single software supplier carries serious financial, technological, and geopolitical risks, while also constraining the development of the local IT market. Instrat warns that this approach leads to a loss of cost control, forces institutions into expensive hardware and software migrations, and reduces the resilience of state systems. At the same time, it stifles the growth of domestic technological capabilities. By contrast, other European countries are successfully implementing open solutions, treating public procurement as an element of sovereign digital policy rather than a purely technical purchasing process.
2. Poland’s public procurement system for office software shows a strong, systemic preference for Microsoft solutions, which in practice leads to the exclusion of competition. According to the Instrat Foundation’s analysis, as many as 99% of tenders for office software in 2025 were structured in a way that prevented other vendors from participating. While procurements are formally described as “open,” in practice the preferences embedded in technical specifications effectively eliminate independent and open-source solutions.
3. Tender requirements used by public administration are often based on non-substantive criteria that, in effect, entrench Microsoft’s monopoly. Examples include demands that an entire office suite come from a single vendor, compatibility with closed technologies (such as Active Directory or VBScript), and even aesthetic interface features. Such provisions—frequently irrelevant from a functional standpoint—successfully block alternatives and reinforce vendor lock-in.