Europe’s public sector embraces digital sovereignty with Nextcloud Hub 8 over big tech

Developed together with public and private sector organizations, Nextcloud Hub 8 brings the out-of-the-box capabilities local and federal government agencies need to facilitate digital collaboration

April 24, Munich – at the Nextcloud Enterprise day in Munich, Nextcloud Hub 8 was presented to 200 participants from the public and private sector across Europe and the world. The release was developed following key input from the public sector, addressing challenges around AI data leaks, cross-departmental communication and accessibility certification as well as day-to-day efficient team work.

Cloud giants OVHcloud and IONOS presented their European-based AI-as-a-Service offerings for Nextcloud at the Nextcloud Enterprise Day, announced earlier. AI is a major challenge in the public sector, with data transfers to big tech firms posing a huge legal and digital sovereignty risk.

Developed in collaboration with public sector partners including the German state Schleswig-Holstein, the Nextcloud AI Assistant V2.0 provides a versatile solution to the data sovereignty challenge that is grounded in on-premises or regionally hosted AI services. This Assistant release brings even deeper integration in the Nextcloud Hub collaboration platform with email message suggestions, mail thread and chat summaries and the ability to answer questions about the users documents adding to existing capabilities.

Critical in the public sector, Nextcloud announces it’s flagship product has gained BitBV 2.0 accessibility certification, providing access to all users, including those with limitations and requirements for non-standard input devices or measures like screen readers.

Other key features in Nextcloud Hub 8 include the addition of chat federation in Nextcloud talk, simplifying the collaboration across organizational borders by allowing participants from multiple Nextcloud servers to talk in a single chat room. The release also makes it possible to use Nextcloud Tables to build mini applications using no-code methods. A significant overhaul of the custom user groups management interface, now renamed from Circles to Teams, helps organizations work more efficiently.

With Nextcloud Tables, we’re definitely getting to a point where we can replace traditional specialized procedures, (German: Fachverfahren), by storing the data structures in Nextcloud.

— Sven Thomsen, CIO Schleswig-Holstein

Nextcloud Hub 8 is available for easy and fast deployment in security and compliance critical environments across the globe, with turn-key availability for the public sector without need for a tender from Bechtle in Germany and several other European countries.

Nextcloud’s solutions are already being used successfully by many customers in the public sector. The joint offer guarantees the highest standards of security and data protection based on open source technology.

— Manuel Liesenfeld, Head of Public Sector Division, Bechtle AG.

About Nextcloud

Nextcloud Hub is the leading open source, on-premises content collaboration platform with a strong focus on data protection. It is deployed by tens of thousands of organizations to stay in control of their sensitive content in compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.

Nextcloud presents a unified, comprehensive platform addressing collaboration needs through document sharing, real-time editing, video conferencing, calendaring, mail and other capabilities. This singular approach across mobile, web and desktop interfaces provides a superior user experience and increased productivity.

It is designed with an open, modular architecture that enables organizations to optimize their content collaboration both within and outside their organization. More information on nextcloud.com.

Links

• Details on Bechtle tender-free hosted Nextcloud solution for the public sector
• Details on Nextcloud AI Assistant 2.0
• Graphics resources (Nextcloud download link)