Nextcloud Hub 9 creates global collaboration network

Latest iteration of popular on-premises collaboration platform allows federated calls, chat and document collaboration, bridging hundreds of thousands of servers in a global network.

Berlin (Germany), September 14, 2024 – Live from the Nextcloud Conference, Nextcloud Hub 9 is released with new federation features, the introductions of process automation platform Flow, a new whiteboard, form entry in Nextcloud Office and an AI chat UI for the Nextcloud Assistant. Nextcloud Hub 9 allows users to share and work on documents, chat and have video calls across servers, forming a fully decentralized, digitally sovereign collaboration network.

“Regulators are responding to a growing backlash against big tech firms from users who perceive their behaviour as market abuse, with the term ‘malicious compliance’ being used. This trend causes a growing interest in decentralisation technologies,” said Frank Karlitschek, founder and CEO at Nextcloud.

Federation, known from email as well as social network Mastodon, is a key feature that allows users on different servers to communicate and share with each other. With Nextcloud Hub 9 the core abilities of Nextcloud Hub are fully decentralized, enabling users to share and work on documents and engage in chat and video calls without having to own accounts on multiple servers. Using their federated cloud ID, similar to an email address or Mastodon account, users can invite users from other servers to join a file share, document editing session, chat room or call.

This release also introduces Nextcloud Flow, a full business process engine allowing automation of processes specifically targeting the digitalisation of work in the public sector. Related this feature is support for data entry of form fields in Documents. This allows users to share template documents which, on opening, provide an easy form that users can fill in. The data is then automatically entered in the document, which can then be viewed and edited by the user. The data is also available for processing by Nextcloud Flow, both import and generation of new documents including PDF files. Flow also integrates with Nextcloud Tables, accessing or modifying data in rows; and with Nextcloud Mail, receiving and sending emails and attachments.

Flow also ties in with the Nextcloud Assistant which gained a new chat interface in this release. Data can be send to or retrieved from the Assistant in an automated flow, allowing the AI to help fill in documents or summarise data.

Nextcloud Hub 9 is available immediately, with downloads of the All-in-One Docker container and virtual machine image available on nextcloud.com/install.

Links

• Graphics including videos and screenshots: Nextcloud Hub 9 visual assets
• Nextcloud Hub 9 release blog post: http://nextcloud.com/blog/nextcloud-hub9

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.

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