The longer background is that Christian Ude our mayor until 2014 furthered the LiMux[1] project - migrating more than 14000 PCs in public administration to Linux.

He got personal visits from both Ballmer and Gates that pressured him to stay with Microsoft[2] but did not balk.

Unfortunately his successor caved to Microsoft's siren song abolished LiMux and Microsoft got a nice campus in the city (they used to be at the outskirts).

Since May this year we have the young and energetic Dominik Krause and there is hope for change again.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

[2] https://www.linux-magazin.de/ausgaben/2019/10/interview-2/