Away from Big Tech: pilot with Microsoft Teams alternative starts in July

Employees will be able to take part in a pilot with Nextcloud from July, an alternative for part of the Microsoft software that’s currently in use. There is space for a hundred people in the project run by national IT organisation SURF.

The pilot is part of a broader movement at universities to reduce dependence on Big Tech, especially US companies.

CLOUD-act

Nextcloud is from a German company but is open-source software, which means the code can be viewed by anyone and anyone can contribute to its development. Working with Nextcloud means universities are no longer tied to the link between software and hosting, as is the case with Microsoft, says Mira Bückmann. She coordinates the pilot at Erasmus University. “With Microsoft 365 we cannot say: give me just the software, we will install it ourselves. Microsoft always hosts it on its own servers.” And that is a risk.

Because of this, Microsoft 365 falls under the CLOUD Act, which gives the US government the ability to request (under certain conditions) data from American companies about foreign institutions or individuals. Nextcloud is run on the servers of the Dutch IT organisation SURF, which removes that risk.

Complete package

The pilot starts in July and lasts one year. All components of Nextcloud Hub are being offered in the pilot, so participants can get a clear picture of its possibilities. Nextcloud offers a complete office suite with alternatives to, for example, Word, Excel and SharePoint.

The storage space is limited, so users cannot immediately move all their documents into it. There is a solution for this, Bückmann explains: SURF recommends participants use SURF Drive or Research Drive. These are long-running services that specifically provide the document management part of Nextcloud. Drive offers staff one terabyte of storage, while Research Drive allows even more.

‘Outlook’ still missing

What is still missing is a link with email and calendar. “So if you want to invite your colleagues, you still have to do that via Outlook,” says Bückmann. This feature is expected to be added later in the pilot period.

Staff can still sign up for the pilot. Bückmann: “We do recommend doing so in groups of colleagues you work closely with. Otherwise this service is not very useful.”