Sovereign workplace
In shortEmail, files, chat, documents without Microsoft. Technically solved, humanly hard.
The sovereign workplace is the part of the debate that shows whether anyone means it. Data centres you swap in the background. The workplace, everybody in the building notices on day one.
What it consists of
A full replacement for Microsoft 365 needs at least five parts: directory and sign-in, mail and calendar, files and sharing, document editing, and chat plus video meetings.
ZenDiS's openDesk bundle assembles exactly those pieces — Nextcloud, Open-Xchange, Collabora, Element and Univention — and ships them as one package rather than a construction kit.
What works
Day-to-day operation. Schleswig-Holstein is converting its administration, France's Gendarmerie has run on Linux for years, Munich tried and reversed, Barcelona and Dortmund are going ahead. The technology is not the problem.
What does not
The edge cases. A spreadsheet with macros grown over a decade. The regulator's form that only looks right in Word. The industry application that expects an Outlook add-in. The external partner who wants a PowerPoint file back with the animations still running.
Individually small, and in aggregate the actual cost.
The route that works in practice
Not at once, but in layers, starting where resistance is lowest: video meetings first, then file storage, then email, document editing last. Each stage is useful on its own, and each can be reversed.
And with one truth stated up front: some things get worse before they get better. Hide that and you lose the workforce in week three — and the workforce, not IT, decides this project.