Hello all,
Iāve been a Google Workspace specialist for 10 years. I also did some MS365. Professionally, Iām a Google Partner.
However Iāve long since been hoping for a credible European alternative. Iām convinced that sovereign data is increasingly important, not to mention choice and fair competition. Unfortunately, after testing a few services (Proton, K suite from Infomaniakā¦), none come close to what Microsoft and Google have to offer, in my opinion. Synology seems to have a nice suite but itās proprietary and limited to specific hardware.
NextCloud is arguably the suite that comes closest, given its large offering of apps. However it seems to me there are still some major caveats on basic things that need to be addresses before it can be offered to businesses at a large scale.
We was hoping we could discuss those here, in the hope of gaining visibility on when those developments will come, and maybe prioritise development in the community. Iām sure those feature ideas have been discussed individually, but I was hoping on a broader / strategy discussion.
Here are a few thoughts of what needs to be improved, in my opinion.
- Built-in mail server
An admin looks to something that is easy to implement, maintain, and manage on a daily basis.
The fact that creating a user does not create an account on a mail server at the same time makes things a lot more complicated to implement and maintain on a daily basis. I believe a mail server should be built in out of the box, with some support to configure MX, DKIM, SPF, DMARC policies, etc.
- A groupware mobile app
The same goes with mobile apps. A business cannot possibly spend time downloading independant apps and configuring access to an IMAP server, Caldav server, etc for each userās mobile phone. Nextcloud should have dedicated apps for mail, calendar, contactsā¦ not just for document items. It should be a one download, one login thing.
- Transparent maintenance
I used to try and install Nextcloud on a Linux machine but that was far from easy for a novice.
Recently, I subscribed to Ionosās service and it was much easier to implement. From my understanding, Ionos will transparently update the apps and maintain the system.
However, some additional features seem very cumbersome. For instance, how to make backups of both mails, documents, and the whole system ? Apparently one needs to run command lines, even log out users ? This should be included out of the box in the admin console for the admins to use.
It should also be clear that any provider of Nextcloud such as Ionos has backup and recovery systems in place in case the server fails.
- Better quality apps
Some apps with apparently simple UIs do not seem to work well. I have yet to manage importing a single picture in the Photos appā¦ (the loading bar simply does not budge).
In the longer runā¦
In the longer run, I see tons of features that would help Nextcloud compete. Obviously this would be a lot a work to implement.
- an MDM to manage devices (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux). At least for authentication, basic security features, and app deployment in Android and the āNextcloudā browser.
- a home baked version of Chromium that would sync features, data, etc with user accounts on Nextcloud,
- a home baked version of Android, with an open source app store, better integration of Nextcloud and third party servicesā¦ Maybe a partnership with CyanogenMod and some manufacturing brands ?