David and Jeff – Wirtschaftswoche interviewed Frank Karlitschek and Achim Weiß

Last January, two German cloud leaders partnered up: Nextcloud and IONOS wanted to offer a cloud solution that protects the digital sovereignty of European organizations. This week the prominent German Wirtschafswoche ("business week") published an interview with the founders and CEO's of both companies, Frank Karlitschek for Nextcloud and IONOS's Achim Weiß.

The interviewer visited the hosting center of IONOS in karlsruhe, which is home to over 13.000 servers spread over 11 rooms. European customers can be assured that their data is on one of the 90.000 servers in this or the other data centers in Europe.

The team collaboration solution from Nextcloud is a great fit for a German hosted cloud, offering full support for open standards and, if needed, integration of additional functionality, migration to other providers or easy export of data. This means the customer remains in control over their data. Many closed, foreign cloud solutions make migrating away hard if not impossible, creating a situation where data is sometimes nearly held hostage.

The interviewer points out that, of course, both European firms are dwarfed by the American Goliaths they compete with. With a turnover of 25 billion, the 842 million of IONOS is small and Nextcloud's single digit turnover even more. Yet the timing of the offer of the two firms is great, with more and more European organizations looking for a content collaboration solution that does not require them to hand over data to what is essentially a global jurisdiction with little transparency.

Only about 22% of the German medium sized companies is using cloud service, so there is plenty space for growth in the market and the interest in the offering is huge.

If you're able to read German and have a Wirtschaftswoche subscription, you can read the full interview and analysis (sadly behind a paywall) on their website or grab a magazine in one of the few stores still open!