Afaik the stated reasons for moving back were pure BS, or at least blown out of proportion. It mainly came down to the people in charge being very “friendly” with M$. Munich got a new major, he publicly called software-freedom “idiological nonsense”, asked a consulting firm that partners with and sells M$ products to analyse the situation, and everyone was shocked when they recommended M$.

As much as im a foss person I could see if failing on “merits” in the sense it started in 2003. SuSE might have been worked out but they took 10 years and if at that point they were still using something decided in 2003 it was bound to be messed up. Seriously we are talking when open office was nascent and star office was a thing.