govdigital eG has awarded IONOS a four-year framework contract under KoDaS, the abbreviation for a collaboration and file storage system. The service delivered under it is built on Nextcloud and sold as Nextcloud Workspace.

It is meant for schools and school authorities in the German states of Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Hesse. Other German states can join later, and schools are not mandated to implement it.

How the deal works

IONOS is the main contractor. It is tasked with delivering and operating the service, running the cloud infrastructure located in German data centers, and building it all on Nextcloud's open source software.

The tender notice for KoDaS sets a maximum value of 67.5 million euros and a maximum term of 48 months from the award. Nextcloud's announcement names the six states and their schools as the main parties who can order, leaving room for other states to be added later.

The announcement does not say what the contract will actually be worth. 📝

The notice calls for procuring software available under an OSI-approved open source license, citing digital sovereignty, lasting availability, and the ability to switch providers.

Among its asks for bidders are ISO 27001 certification, at least 10 million euros in turnover, liability insurance of at least 5 million euros, and a reference project with at least 10,000 active users and fully separated tenants.

For the features, the notice calls for central file hosting and sharing, a browser-based office suite for working on documents together, calendar and contact management, and an integrated email client.

Pricing depends on how many people actively use the service, and it is split into five tiers that start at the up to 50,000 users mark, ending above 500,000. No school authority has to commit to a set volume up front, so each can begin with its current users and grow from there.

Nextcloud's main argument is that public institutions should have alternatives to proprietary platforms so they keep control of their data. The company also believes students who start out using open source tools are less likely to reach for big-vendor products afterward.

We have seen this already

Other German institutions are also reworking their software. Last year, we heard that almost 80% of Schleswig-Holstein's state government workplaces had switched away from Microsoft.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is replacing SharePoint with a self-hosted Nextcloud that around 5,000 employees use today, and the state plans to bring that to 50,000 across the public sector.

Then there's the federal Deutschland-Stack, published by the Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernization, which covers all levels of public administration and permits use of only ODF and PDF/UA for documents.

I anticipate more such moves across Europe as governments realize that keeping sensitive data with providers that fall under foreign law can expose it to access they have no say over, irrespective of where the servers are located.

The ongoing US midterms could also shift the conversation depending on who comes out ahead.