> When asked whether the emerging Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernization had already set up a "signal group" for messaging exchange, the head of d

> When asked whether the emerging Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernization had already set up a "signal group" for messaging exchange, the head of department replied that the ministry was still "on a wild goose chase" following the US TeleMessage affair. It was still sounding out which infrastructure would be best for this. I wonder where they will land. Since this is a CDU minister coming from a corporation, I would have instinctively have expected him to side with big business and go with the Microsoft stack. Both that he wasn’t a part of the CDU before joining the government and that he seems to understand the principle of digital sovereignty is a very positive sign to me. Because of this I am certain that they are evaluating OpenDesk (https://www.opendesk.eu/en https://www.opendesk.eu/en) by the German center for digital sovereignty (https://www.zendis.de/ https://www.zendis.de/), which tries combines Collabora Online, OpenXChange, Matrix, XWiki and some smaller tools into a cohesive suite. Them ending up choosing it would be a natural fit sovereignty wise and not unprecedented - the military‘s BWMessenger is already basically a version of Element. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t. Being a former CEO, the man will understand how the efficiency and reliability of the IT infrastructure will affect his organization‘s productivity - and I fear those products are definitely behind the top of the line commercial solutions in that regard. That said, Microsoft also keeps fumbling with its products and ministry workers are likely already used to sub optimal processes, so maybe in the name of sovereignty it will be worth it.