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EU states looking for MS Teams/O365 alternatives

• gidorah 5y ago
  One of my endless frustrations is feeling like O365 is the only game in town. I imagine it is a fruitless process in the short term
• Hokusai 5y ago
  They can use a very good Danish/Swedish alternative: Skype. Or maybe not, because it was sold to an American company.
  • metafex 5y ago
    Most of the developers have been and still are in Estonia. It would be easier to enforce regulations there technically.
  • k4rli 5y ago
    Microsoft has also ruined that. Whatsmore Teams (at least on Linux) appears to be Skype under-the-hood with just a different UI. Even the name of the audio device for Teams remains unchanged.
  • miohtama 5y ago
    Skype was Estonian.
    • dagw 5y ago
      Skype had it's main dev office in Estonia and that was where most of the development work was done, but it was never an Estonian company.
• bnt 5y ago
  Good luck getting 30+ years of experience in writing Office software (and then porting it to the cloud) with an EU startup.
  • pajko 5y ago
    https://www.onlyoffice.com/ https://www.onlyoffice.com/
  • dagw 5y ago
    SoftMaker is a German company that has been developing and selling office software 30+ years.
  • mschuster91 5y ago
    We could simply pool a bunch of money together to invest in development of Jitsi and OpenOffice/LibreOffice. Especially the latter desperately need it. The problem is, our politicians are either bought-off, digitally incompetent or irrelevant (sorry, Die PARTEI and Pirates, you're good but you're too small).
  • otabdeveloper4 5y ago
    If you've ever used the online Office365 then you know that Microsoft's experience in writing desktop office software didn't transfer to the cloud offering at all. (Online Office is horrible in every way and isn't even compatible with desktop Office.) So I'm saying it should be doable, theoretically. Starting from scratch might be an opportunity here, not an impediment.
    • usrusr 5y ago
      Can it be worse than offline MS Office? I've never used O365 and got initially acquainted with MS Office on some version of Winword before going deep on O'97, but whatever I use now feels full of limiting UI quirks that were tolerable twenty years ago but feel outrageously cumbersome looking at them from the present day. Combined with the sedimental layers of crustified superficial UI "reinventions" of several generations of product managers trying to leave their mark that eventually burden every Microsoft product. It's hardly surprising that fresh approaches like Google's offerings seem to eat MSOffice's lunch without even seriously trying.
• m33k44 5y ago
  Jitsi?[0] It was european at one point. And online LibreOffice from Collabora?[1] [0] https://jitsi.org https://jitsi.org [1] https://www.collaboraoffice.com https://www.collaboraoffice.com
  • ekianjo 5y ago
    Jitsi is already integrated in Element/Matrix, so Matrix/Element is a better solution to cover most needs such as chat management.
    • solarkraft 5y ago
      I have trouble seeing Element as a solution for anything, to be honest. My experience with it is that it’s slow, has cumbersome/confusing UX and is unreliable. I recently re-evaluated it and came to the same conclusion. I want it to succeed, but the base line should be being better than Teams in those points and I see it far from it.
      • 29083011397778 5y ago
        > My experience with it is that it’s slow I'm guessing you created an account on the default Matrix.org homeserver? While hardware requirements have been steadily dropping for months now, the default seems to attract more than enough people to negate these advances. So while Matrix.org accounts and rooms may feel slow, I hope you'll be willing to give it another shot some day in the future. To that end, I would highly recommend setting up your own server (as the French and German government agencies have done), or even hopping on mine (email is on my profile) if you just want to test it for a day or two. As far as the cumbersome UI/UX - you got me. While some people like it, many people seem to disagree. Over time, the myriad of clients will presumably get better, and hopefully the people not currently enamored with the UX can find one they like :) Regarding reliability, you may have to expand on that. I've been using my Matrix server (and Telegram / Whatsapp bridges) to chat for months now, and have had messages come through faster for me than others in the same group chat! All that said, maybe you just had a bad experience. I'd never try and say you didn't, but hopefully there was another explanation than just "Matrix is still nowhere close to ready".
• sdze 5y ago
  Nobody really needs the feature set of MS Office.
  • sichtlinkair 5y ago
    Obviously, but they're targeting everyone with a huge feature set
  • pjmlp 5y ago
    True, except everyone needs a different set of their own 10% features.
• fxtentacle 5y ago
  In conjunction with recently announced subsidies and government spending to jumpstart the economy after Covid, I see this more as a strategy announcement, similar to the Chinese 2025 plan. It'll be quite fruitless in the short term, because already nobody really likes Office 365. Everyone just uses it for lack of better options. But in the long term, governments announcing their intent to purchase should be quite the incentive for startups to replicate the core Office365 functionality. Of course, that's not going to be feature compete, but AFAIK most people only use a tiny subset of what Word / Excel can do.
• lousken 5y ago
  For MS teams, many other alternatives like Element.io exists. For 365 that's a lot harder, mostly because nobody has come close to what Outlook and Exchange can do in large orgs. Word, Excel, PP are somewhat replaceable and 80% of ppl in those orgs would probably be ok with the alternatives. It is the 20% that uses more niche features that may or may not work as expected in competing products.
  • Akronymus 5y ago
    Element/matrix having private homeserver hosting options + controls over federating are some of THE killer features IMO. Allows admins quite a lot of control.
  • nicoburns 5y ago
    What is it that Outlook and Exchange can do? I'm surprised that it's this and not word/excel that would be the blocker. Open source seems well-established within the email ecosystem...
    • number6 5y ago
      I am trying for years to replace Outlook - Exchange is no Problem- but everybody wants the Look and feeling of Outlook. If you have a viable alternative working on Linux, Mac and Windows, please tell me! I am using Evolution right now.
      • laurent92 5y ago
        Isn’t Gmail widespread enough to be appreciated?
        • soco 5y ago
          If your plan is to move away from O365 frying pan them jumping into Google's fire is definitely not the way to go.
        • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
• ekianjo 5y ago
  Matrix? That's already widely available, with E2E, and can be self-hosted too.
  • pkz 5y ago
    That is one of the products they are considering (like the French government did). But it needs more functionality than team chat to be viable.
• traspler 5y ago
  O365 is a big pain point for Swiss banks. It's tremendous work to even assess the situation and you have to try to get straight answers out of MS in regards to every last detail of every feature. From the little knowledge I have about this, it might not even be enough for MS to guarantee that the no data leaves EU borders but simply the fact that MS is a US company could be enough for US courts to force them to exfiltrate data. Not sure if this is correct or if they already have a company structure in place that would prevent this. As much as I would like to see more competition thanks to this, I think at the end MS will figure it out and they will remain the dominant force.
  • throwaway210222 5y ago
    > MS is a US company could be enough for US courts to force them to exfiltrate data. The CLOUD Act of 2018 was written and passed with the purpose of forcing US companies to hand over data to the US government - regardless of where the data is stored.
• klaustopher 5y ago
  The interesting thing is, that in Germany Microsoft and Deutsche Telekom used to have a set up, where you could buy O365 hosted by Telekom, without Microsoft (as a US company) having access to the data if they are asked for it, via the Cloud Act. But as they had many integration problems, they stopped offering this service in 2018[1] (German). I think looking at GDPR and Schrems2 requirements, this would have been a viable model. [1]: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Auslaufmodell-Microsoft-Cloud-Deutschland-4152650.html https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Auslaufmodell-Micros...
  • pkz 5y ago
    I believe it will come back. France is working on Bleu [1] which looks very similar to what Germany and Microsoft tried back then. In the mean time I think startups like Basecamp [2] that can provide a compliant alternative right now would get quite a lot of customers. One way of doing it is partnering with a European company to provide the same service out of reach to the US government. [1]: https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2021/05/27/2237023/0/en/Press-Release-Capgemini-and-Orange-announce-plan-to-create-Bleu-a-company-to-provide-a-Cloud-de-Confiance-in-France.html https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2021/05/27/223... [2]: https://basecamp.com/ https://basecamp.com/
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• minhducdoo 5y ago
  During my journey to break up with Google, I found Infomaniak is another option for EU countries. https://www.infomaniak.com/en/kdrive/apps https://www.infomaniak.com/en/kdrive/apps
• npteljes 5y ago
  I wish they considered ONLYOFFICE. Nice online document and sheet editor, company is based in Latvia, an EU and Eurozone member. And since it's AGPL, any govt can hire a team and fork it, to tailor it to their liking.
  • pkz 5y ago
    I think OnlyOffice is one of the candidates being considered. But it needs more tools around it (e.g. Nextcloud for files and tasks, videoconferencing etc). If the OnlyOffice developers made a giant leap to broaden their product they would likely attract a lot of customers in the EU right now.
• raxxorrax 5y ago
  This is a fairly good idea. I think funding OS Office solutions would be feasible. It would be the cheapest thing any government ever did when it approached software. And no, the average clerk can just a well use Word 95 and Libre Office is often just as feature rich as the MS alternative. The largest difference is Excel I believe. Well, then use Excel, but the rest isn't needed for anything.
  • dagw 5y ago
    My understanding is that the problem isn't Office itself, but the cloud and online collaboration features. So saying "just use Word95 or Open Office" is in no way a solution.
    • raxxorrax 5y ago
      I can understand teams, but I always think about "collaboration" as a waste of time in day to day business. People happily share on network drives and if you really need SharePoint, take a look at Nextcloud. Domain controlling is perhaps something not easily replaced, but the rest is just fluff in my opinion. Teams might be the most useful app of all the bunch. Seeing other cursors in a Word document was a fun at first, now it only induces endless rage and while neat, it certainly isn't a requirement.
      • halo37253 5y ago
        To implement Nextcloud to the same level as Sharepoint, big money would need to be spent. Remember this data can never be lost, and needs little to no downtime. Building your own cloud service is no cheap and easy option. Epically when its a bank. Even a custom solution built on opensource tech was used, they would be responsible to keep it updated. That in itself is a massive task. There is a reason why Azure and AWS based cloud systems are pretty much a standard. There isn't a solid alt. O365 Exchange keep you free from worrying about keeping your server up to date. O365 Teams allows for not only communication but collaboration. Teams integrates with SharePoint allowing for project sites. O365 Sharepoint & Onedrive allow for extremely flexible data storage and data shares. With all the permission options you'd ever need. You can move your AD Login's user folder to use your personal Onedrive account, a highly effective tool. There just isn't good options to replace O365. Google's GSuite is a crappy alt for Admins that couldn't figure out 365's complex admin consoles.
• erik78se 5y ago
  This is the reason I'm, and a group of people develop deployment methods for NEXTCLOUD. We want to be able to offer PRIVATE solution that will be able to deliver both secure and private cloud infrastructure at scale to organizations that can't affort placing their data in the hands of neither Donald Trump or Xi Jinping. https://charmhub.io/nextcloud https://charmhub.io/nextcloud
• random_dork1 5y ago
  Nextcloud is trying to be that replacement. I hope they succeed.
• ssivark 5y ago
  Depending on what they are seeking, Zoho [1] might be a good choice (has most pieces of the office/apps/IT suite). I've also heard that Zoho has been having very good traction in Europe, especially among users looking to avoid the MS/Goog duopoly and stay on the right side of data sovereignty requirements. [1] https://www.zoho.com/ https://www.zoho.com/
  • pkz 5y ago
    But isn't Zoho Corp an Indian / US company? If so the customer needs to do an assessment of India as a third country and what laws they have that may impact GDPR compliance. Sounds difficult.
• danwood8m 5y ago
  Friend OS is a great open source platform, with shared storage, document collaboration and video conferencing. https://friendsky.cloud/ https://friendsky.cloud/
• nokya 5y ago
  Very interestingly, most comments seem to focus on trying to propose you a "magic" product. The problem you are trying to solve is not a technology but a human issue: most organizations don't have the resources anymore to handle the technical complexity required to operate an integrated collaboration platform that is fully interoperable both within the organization and outside. The shortest answer is that Microsoft solved this problem by hiring lots of people and making it possible (Google, too, but that keeps you with the same compliance issue). The first problem EU States need to solve is human resources. Then they will be able to discuss possible solutions. Starting the discussion on how to replace Microsoft by looking for products is basically running into a 100% failure trajectory. My 2 cents.
  • nokya 5y ago
    Corollary to my comment in relation with the swiss banks example in another thread: when all actors face the same problem, it's not a problem.