Six openDesk vendors form Open Productivity joint venture to compete with Microsoft 365

Open Productivity is a new joint venture formed by six of the eight vendors behind openDesk, a browser-based open-source productivity platform initiated by ZenDiS, a federally owned German company. The venture provides a unified commercial front for medium-to-large enterprises and public sector organizations seeking alternatives to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. The platform bundles software from Collabora Productivity, Element, Nordeck, Open-Xchange, Univention, and XWiki, with Nextcloud and OpenProject remaining outside the joint venture. A free Community Edition and a commercially supported Enterprise Edition are available.

What Open Productivity changes for openDesk

• Deployment: Browser-based platform with apps deployed on Kubernetes; Pfeifer estimates 60-plus containers plus databases and storage in a typical deployment
• Editions: Community Edition (free, self-managed, all eight vendor components) and Enterprise Edition (commercial support, SLAs, different branding, extra modules)
• Release cycle: Monthly minor releases; current version is 1.19
• Target scale: Minimum recommended deployment is hundreds of users, typically thousands; not aimed at small organizations
• Enterprise options: Self-hosted with commercial support, or fully managed SaaS edition
• Components: Includes Collabora Office Online, Element, Open-Xchange, XWiki, and others

Why it matters

The venture reflects growing European policy pressure to reduce dependence on US-based big tech vendors, with openDesk already deployed in German public sector and undergoing proofs of concept in France and Switzerland. However, the platform's complexity and scale requirements mean it will primarily serve as an enterprise and government option rather than broadening open-source productivity adoption for smaller organizations.