June 13, 2025, 5:49 am | Read time: 2 minutes
Dependence on U.S. tech giants like Microsoft is causing increasing unease in Europe. However, two German companies are now announcing a promising alternative. Their goal: greater digital sovereignty for European businesses and authorities.
Nextcloud and Ionos are planning an open-source office software aimed at making European companies independent from U.S. providers. The software is expected to benefit security-critical industries as a rival to Microsoft Office.
Office “Made in Europe” as an Alternative to U.S. Services
The German software company Nextcloud and the web host Ionos have announced a collaboration to jointly develop a comprehensive office software. The project’s goal is to offer European companies a digital solution that operates entirely independently of non-European technology providers. Google holds 45 percent of the global market share with its productivity software, followed by Microsoft with 29 percent (Source: Statista).
“We are currently seeing a high demand for sovereign and secure workplace solutions,” said Markus Noga, chief technology officer of the company recently added to the MDax, at a Nextcloud event on Thursday.
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Open Source with a Focus on Data Protection
The planned product is to be developed as open-source software, meaning the program code is publicly accessible. This aims to create a transparent and trustworthy platform that meets the highest data protection standards.
“We offer a fully GDPR-compliant, cloud-based collaboration suite where users retain full data sovereignty,” explained Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek. “This provides a secure, practical option, especially for regulated industries and authorities.”
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Growing Independence Through European IT Initiatives
The background of the cooperation is the desire of many European states and companies for greater technological independence–not least due to increasing geopolitical tensions with the U.S. and China. Additionally, public institutions and companies in sensitive sectors are legally required to prevent data processing outside their respective jurisdictions.
There are already various European projects dedicated to this goal–such as building their own data centers or promoting software solutions from Europe. The collaboration between Nextcloud and Ionos is another step toward digital sovereignty.
With material from Reuters