Across France, local authorities are striving to maintain – and sometimes even improve – the quality of their digital public services, while their budgets are steadily eroded by repeated price increases from major US software vendors. Since Microsoft announced the end of support for Exchange 2016 and 2019, organisations have been firmly steered toward cloud-based or subscription-only models. Costs are rising, contracts are increasingly restrictive, and while users struggle with the idea of change, migrations continue to inspire real anxiety.
The outcome is predictable. Many IT leaders end up accepting the status quo, caught between security requirements, mounting financial pressure and the fear of disrupting a tool that sits at the very heart of public service operations.
Yet there are genuine reasons for optimism. This article explores the origins and consequences of this cost spiral, the obstacles that still hold IT departments back, and above all the practical paths that make it possible to regain control – without sacrificing productivity for end users. Yes, it is possible to take back control of messaging without abandoning established workflows or giving up Outlook. That is precisely the vision behind BlueMind: a French, sovereign solution designed specifically to meet the needs of local authorities.
The budget trap of US-driven digitalisation
For more than three decades, Microsoft has established itself as the de facto standard for office productivity and enterprise messaging. Its tools are powerful, tightly integrated and deeply familiar to employees. What began as widespread standardisation has gradually turned into economic dominance, marked by regular price increases, growing gaps between real needs and imposed functional complexity, and carefully engineered technical dependencies.
The COVID crisis only accelerated this dynamic. The strategy is simple and remarkably effective: attract organisations with appealing initial pricing, lock in habits over time, then reinforce dependency through contractual and technical entanglements. Faced with an unprecedented crisis and the imperative to ensure continuity of public services, local authorities naturally turned to readily available solutions, often offered at very low cost in the early stages. Large tech companies can afford to give services away temporarily, knowing they will later become deeply embedded.
IT departments themselves bear no blame. They acted responsibly, using the tools available to keep public services running during extraordinary times. Today, however, many find themselves trapped in a model they no longer fully control. Price increases pile up, “cloud-only” offers replace perpetual licences, and contracts evolve with little or no room for negotiation.
A tense and unstable geopolitical context
This cost spiral unfolds against an increasingly strained national and international backdrop. In France, the recent doubling of the so-called GAFAM tax went almost unnoticed amid broader political turmoil. While the intent – to ensure that highly profitable tech giants contribute more fairly – is legitimate, its implementation has sparked significant tensions. In July 2025, the Trump administration openly condemned the measure and threatened retaliatory tariffs on French wine exports. Large digital platforms may well pass these additional costs on to their customers, as Amazon has already suggested.
This situation highlights the profound imbalance in the power relationship between Europe and US tech giants. Efforts to rebalance taxation risk weakening public administrations that depend daily on the very providers being targeted.
In such a climate, technological dependency becomes both a political and a financial risk, particularly as it can be weaponised in broader global power struggles involving industries such as energy and automotive manufacturing. Decisions made in GAFAM boardrooms – or in the White House – have very real consequences for the budgets of French local authorities, already shaken by national fiscal uncertainty. With shrinking allocations and growing constraints, long-term financial visibility is rapidly disappearing.
The end of support for Exchange 2016 and 2019 further intensifies this pressure. Organisations are forced to act, while migration to the US cloud is presented as the only viable option. If digital technology is a tool of political influence, entrusting strategic systems to foreign hyperscalers exposes public services to decisions taken elsewhere. For local authorities, digital sovereignty is no longer an abstract concept – it is a matter of survival.
Messaging migration: a project that fuels anxiety
The diagnosis is clear. Leaving Microsoft for a sovereign messaging solution makes sense given the current context. Yet turning intention into action remains difficult, as numerous perceived risks continue to paralyse IT leaders.
First, there is the nature of messaging itself. Email is not just another application. It is the backbone of everyday communication, often the most critical and most heavily used tool within an organisation. Every employee relies on it, with habits and business processes deeply ingrained. Migrating such a system means touching a vital organ – and handling massive volumes of data. Email cannot simply be “switched off” during a migration. Incoming and outgoing messages must continue to flow without interruption, regardless of scale. Achieving this requires expertise and specialised tooling.
The greatest obstacle, however, lies in usage patterns. Habit is powerful, and advanced features create strong dependency. Outlook has become second nature to many professionals, a familiar workspace where workflows feel safe and efficient. The idea of losing Outlook inevitably triggers resistance. More often than not, the technical challenge is secondary to the fear of unsettling thousands of users who worry they will lose their reference points or essential functionality.
Leaving the Microsoft ecosystem therefore represents more than a technical shift. It is a cultural change. A successful migration must acknowledge this reality, preserve established ways of working and provide proper support to teams. The challenge is not simply to change systems, but to change them without changing too much.
Reconciling digital sovereignty with everyday work: the BlueMind approach
These concerns are entirely legitimate, and at BlueMind we encounter them in every migration project. That is why our approach focuses on minimising the impact on end users, following a simple principle: break free from the Outlook lock-in – while keeping Outlook.
BlueMind is the only solution to offer full, native Outlook support, without relying on third-party connectors. Employees continue to use their familiar tools: shared calendars, meeting management, delegations and automation all work as expected. From their perspective, nothing changes. For IT teams, sovereignty is restored.
The goal is not to keep every user on Outlook forever. Deciding on access methods for different user profiles is a key consideration in any migration strategy. To address this, BlueMind provides several complementary access options alongside native Outlook support.
Users can rely on a modern webmail interface, native support for mobile platforms such as iOS and Android, or Thunderbird enhanced with BlueMind collaboration features including calendars, address books and sharing. Thunderbird thus becomes a fully-fledged professional collaborative email client.
From an IT standpoint, no choice is irreversible. Access methods can be defined during migration and adjusted over time as needs evolve.
Migration itself is facilitated by a proven tool, BM Migrator, which enables a secure, step-by-step transition from Exchange environments. There is no abrupt cutover and no service disruption. Exchange and BlueMind can run in parallel throughout the process, supported by extensive documentation and guidance. Every phase of the project is covered, and BlueMind migrations build on real-world experience from numerous local authorities that have already made the move.
Conclusion: restoring confidence in uncertain times
BlueMind is built on a straightforward conviction: organisations must be able to regain control over their digital tools without compromising user experience. Moving away from models imposed by US tech giants is not a leap into the unknown, but a necessary response to an increasingly unstable environment. With BlueMind, local authorities can move at their own pace, preserve established workflows and rely on a trusted French partner to help them take back control of their messaging systems.
