ZenDiS launches openDesk at the Smart Country Convention 2024

The Office & Collaboration Suite for public administration enables new forms of collaborative working and strengthens digital sovereignty

Bochum/Berlin, September 26, 2024 - "It's official. openDesk is here." Under this motto, the Center for Digital Sovereignty in Public Administration (ZenDiS) and its partners are presenting openDesk version 1.0 at the Smart Country Convention (October 15-17, 2024 in Berlin). The Office & Collaboration Suite integrates powerful open source applications for effective digital collaboration under a uniform interface: from word processing and spreadsheets to email, contact and calendar functions, cloud storage and tools for chats and video conferences. A project management module and a wiki are also included.

Proven components, uniform UX & UI

openDesk V 1.0 is based on components that have been tried and tested in enterprise use for years. They come from Collabora, Element, Nextcloud, Nordeck, Open-Xchange, Univention, Open Project and XWiki. The intelligent linking and uniform user interface (UI) create a consistent, user-friendly user experience (UX) for users. The integration of collaborative elements also opens up new opportunities for online collaboration.

Professional operation and all-round carefree package

With the launch of version 1.0, openDesk will be available for the first time as an enterprise edition with two professional operating models in addition to the community edition already available on the open source platform openCode: as a package for operation in your own data center (self-hosting) and as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Support for self-hosting is provided by ZenDiS partner B1 Systems, while the SaaS offering comes from the sovereign data centers of German cloud provider StackIT. Alexander Smolianitski, Head of Open Source Products at ZenDiS: "With openDesk, we are providing our colleagues in public administration with an Office & Collaboration Suite that enables completely new forms of collaboration and at the same time strengthens digital sovereignty. This is a unique combination in this form."

More digital sovereignty, less vendor lock-in

With openDesk, ZenDiS is consciously relying on open source and is thus directly following on from the "Strategy to strengthen the digital sovereignty of public administration IT" adopted by the IT Planning Council in 2021. This emphasizes the importance of open source software for transparency and the ability to switch and as a way out of vendor lock-ins. Markus Richter, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs and Federal Government Commissioner for Information Technology: "The digital workplace is the heart of the administration, and critical dependencies hit us particularly hard here. With openDesk, there is now a real alternative to proprietary solutions. This is a significant step towards an immensely important strategic goal: as a state, we want to position ourselves more digitally sovereign in order to safeguard our integrity and ability to act in the long term." openDesk runs in the browser and is therefore independent of the operating system on any end device. No local installation is required. Anyone who would like to experience openDesk live will have the opportunity to do so at the openDesk stand at the Smart Country Convention (Hub 27, Stand 317) - or at any time at opendesk.eu.

About ZenDiS

The Center for Digital Sovereignty in Public Administration (ZenDiS) was founded in 2022 by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs (BMI). As a competence and service center, ZenDiS supports public administration at federal, state and municipal level in securing its ability to act in the digital space in the long term - above all by eliminating critical dependencies on individual technology providers. To this end, ZenDiS is concentrating on promoting the use of open source software in public administration in the first expansion phase. ZenDiS is a limited liability company and is currently wholly owned by the federal government. A participation of the federal states is in preparation. ZenDiS is based in Bochum.