Continued growth and record prospects for BlueMind, the European sovereign open-source email solution
In an increasingly sovereignty-friendly context, BlueMind – publisher of its namesake open-source collaborative email suite – announces record prospects for 2022.
A wealth of new exclusive features
The BlueMind teams have been hard at work for three years on a new user experience-centred webmail and a sovereign, powerful videoconferencing service, improved handling of high data volumes and resilience including, among others, object storage support.
Pierre Baudracco, CEO of BlueMind, is confident: “With our new webmail, native Outlook support, videoconferencing features, BlueMind takes a further step towards reconciling sovereignty and uses. Collaborative email now has a sovereign alternative, and it’s European !”
The alternative to O365
The current geopolitical context, Microsoft’s monopolistic behaviour, pressure from customers who are growing resentful of vendor-locking, price increases (+20% in March 2022), can help further the issue of sovereignty and technological independence and the importance of a European alternative to O365.
Email and office solutions are key. They are deployed across all company users and therefore influence the entire business’s IT hardware and software.
“Everyone seems to finally realise the importance of having an alternative to O365 and the magnitude of the challenge. At BlueMind, this has been our mission all along. Today governements all over Europe finally seem to be waking up and the collaborative community is making itself heard. All tech players want to add email to their offering and BlueMind is the only sovereign solution that’s up to the job,” Pierre Baudracco adds.
Promising prospects in Germany and Africa
In 2021, BlueMind announced the development of its European ambitions as it moved into Germany. Pierre Baudracco argued that “Germany was a rather natural choice. It’s close to us, at the heart of Europe and shares our views on the urgent need for digital independence from US monopolies, in particular big tech.”
Today, BlueMind relies on three strategic partners who have helped deploy the BlueMind solution for local clients in Germany.
In Africa, BlueMind has just hired Stéphane Kisaka, a senior executive in Congo, who will be supporting and promoting the BlueMind solution in Africa as demand for it grows. New partnerships are already in the pipeline.
Growth means new hires
To support the company’s growth, BlueMind is making headway and has already hired six new employees with a variety of profiles (support, sales, developers, etc.).
A strong, expanding partner network
BlueMind focuses on its business as a software publisher. It relies on a strong and varied partner network to support its clients’ deployment and hosting projects, no matter how diverse or challenging.
Recent additions to BlueMind’s technological and commercial partners includes CHEOPS, Centaur and New Digital Africa.
Further prospects and a clear strategy
BlueMind is set on a path to sustained, controlled growth through talent growth and a four-point roadmap:
- Innovation, through continued enhancements and upgrades in order to consolidate BlueMind’s position as the number 1 alternative to Microsoft’s email.
- The consolidation and expansion of its partner network across Europe and Africa.
- Further integration into other collaborative solution offerings and digital workplaces to become the go-to global email building block for O365 alternatives.
- Renewed commitment to the open-source ecosystem through the co-chairmanship of the French National Free Software Council (CNLL), the vice-chairmanship of the Systematic Open Source Hub and the chairmanship of SoLibre.
BlueMind founding member of EUCLIDIA, the European Cloud Industrial Alliance
23 European companies have announced the creation of the European Cloud Industrial Alliance (EUCLIDIA) formed by independent European original technology manufacturers, for the promotion of digital independence and strategic autonomy. The founding members are Abilian, Amarisoft, Beremiz, BlueMind, Clever cloud, E.corp, Jamespot, Innoroute, Linbit, Netframe, Nexedi, Nextcloud, ng-voice, Nitrokey, OpenSVC, Patrowl, Rapid.Space, Scaleway, SenX, Signal18, Submer, Vates and XWiki. They all develop original software and hardware at the core of a wide range of cloud services: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, edge, vRAN, etc.
EUCLIDIA is endorsed by European-based non-profit organisations that provide resources and access to European institutions: the Conseil National du Logiciel Libre (cnll.fr), the European Association of Next Generation Telecommunications Innovators (eangti.org), the Libre Endowment Fund (fdl-lef.org), and OW2 (ow2.org).
EUCLIDIA will carry the voice of European cloud technology innovators. Its members are all European-based with the majority of shareholders being European. Its mission is to provide lawmakers and policy makers with the field expertise and vision that will reinforce policies that accelerate the adoption and development of leading cloud technologies made in Europe. Such policies should reflect European values such as the protection of privacy and the promotion of fair competition while enabling European cloud industries to be competitive.
BlueMind signs a new strategic partnership agreement in Germany with Centaur GmbH.
Paris, Tuesday 18th May 2021 – For immediate release
BlueMind, publisher of the first sovereign European open-source email solution continues to grow in Germany with a new local partnership agreement with Centaur GmbH.
A network of local partners
French software publisher BlueMind, whose collaborative email solution is already used by over 500 organisations from SMEs to government ministries continues to make inroads in the German market through the signature of a new strategic partnership. Based in Heilbronn since 1991, Centaur GmbH is one of the leading suppliers of outsourced IT services with its own data centre.
This new partnership enables BlueMind to provide deployment and hosting projects in Germany with the added expertise of local players while continuing to focus on its core competency, software publishing.
Cornelius Walz, CEO of Centaur® GmbH, says: “Centaur’s cloud activities are completely independent from ISP providers. We exclusively focus on open-source systems which offer full transparency and have the backing of a strong global community. This is why this partnership with BlueMind makes so much sense! Our ethos is about enabling businesses to focus on their core business without having to worry about their IT working properly. By integrating BlueMind, we are giving them access to a proven, safe, open and sovereign email solution. Such a user-centred offering is still hard to come by in Germany. We are happy and proud to be starting this collaboration”.
A key market in Europe
Europe, and in particular the Franco-German couple, is contending with an unprecedented wakeup call about the significance of digital sovereignty and its technological independence. Yet, key sections of European economy are still under threat. One of them, business email, companies’ most popular and critical IT tool and the hub of all important work documents, is left in the hands of US solutions: O365, Exchange, Google… Why? Because as far as email is concerned, user habits trump all other considerations.
BlueMind is the only natively Outlook-compatible solution and brings the best Thunderbird, web and mobile support. BlueMind preserves user habits while offering a wide range of features (calendars, tasks, corporate signatures, linked attachments, collaboration, etc.).
BlueMind CEOPierre Baudracco explains: “The reason for choosing Germany was self-evident. It’s close to us, it’s at the heart of Europe and they share our perception about the urgent need for digital independence from US monopolies, in particular GAFAM.”
About BlueMind
BlueMind is a complete collaborative business email and unified communications solution. As Europe’s first open-source software publisher, BlueMind brings organisations of all shapes and sizes the choice of a sovereign email solution that is compatible with user habits.
Pierre Baudracco, CEO of BlueMind, has served several times as President of the Paris Open Source Summit Programme and, since October 2019, he has been sitting as co-Chairman of CNLL, the Free Software National Council – France’s equivalent to Germany’s OSBA.
Website: http://www.bluemind.net/
Follow us on Twitter: @_bluemind
About Centaur® GmbH
Founded in 1991 in Heilbronn, Germany, CENTAUR® GmbH is one of the leading outsourced IT services providers with its own data centre. Our many years’ experience enable us to offer our clients maximum security, availability and flexibility.
