Last week, a Dutch newspaper ran a feature on a group of people meeting in a basement room in The Hague to learn how to break free from big tech platforms. Civil servants, freelancers, artists. People who have been frustrated with Google and Microsoft for years, and have finally decided to do something about it.
The story struck a chord. Not because it was surprising, but because it was so recognisable.
One of the participants, a self-employed consultant, put it plainly: she had tried to install Nextcloud roughly ten times over the past year. She is digitally capable. But she could not get it working on her own. When she tackled it together with the group, it worked.
That is exactly where most migration attempts fall apart — and exactly what Ownbase is here for.
Everyone wants to make the switch. Almost no one manages it alone.
The people in that workshop were not technophobes. They understood what open source means. They knew the risks of storing their data with American companies. They had every reason to move. And yet they kept getting stuck.
Because wanting to leave is one thing. Making it actually work is another. A Nextcloud installation that refuses to start. A file share that a colleague cannot open. A client who insists on Teams instead of Nextcloud Talk. An email address that does not transfer cleanly.
A workshop series helps motivated individuals take their first steps. But for a small or medium-sized organisation, that model does not scale. You cannot send your whole team to evening classes on open source infrastructure.
What Ownbase does differently
Ownbase guides organisations through the full migration to a European digital workplace built on Nextcloud. Not as a one-off project that leaves you to fend for yourself afterwards, but as an end-to-end service: from assessment to deployment to ongoing management.
It starts with a Scan: a paid on-site visit where we map out what you are currently using, what it costs, where the risks lie and what a migration would concretely look like. The outcome is a written advisory report with a migration plan and cost overview. A fixed price, no surprises.
After that comes the Migration: installing Nextcloud on a European server, moving your files and email, setting up users and permissions, and training your team. Tailored to your organisation, because no two businesses are the same.
Then comes Management: a fixed monthly fee covering updates, security patches, backups, monitoring and support. So you are not left stranded three months after go-live.
European data — not just a talking point
The workshop organiser in the Dutch article chose Hetzner as his cloud provider deliberately: a German family business, outside the reach of American surveillance law, with no investors chasing maximum returns.
That same logic drives every decision Ownbase makes. Your server is in Europe. The software is open source. Your organisation’s data belongs to you — not as a marketing claim, but as a technical and legal reality. We formalise that in a data processing agreement compliant with GDPR, for every client.
For organisations in Ireland and across the EU, this matters more than ever. The legal landscape around transatlantic data transfers remains uncertain. Keeping your data on European infrastructure is the only reliable way to stay on the right side of it.
The transition takes time — but you do not have to manage it alone
One workshop participant summed up the frustration well: he had hoped to leave with a clean, ready-to-use alternative to the tools he relied on. But no such thing exists. There is always a compromise somewhere.
That is true. Moving from Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace to Nextcloud is not a single click. It takes preparation, patience and some careful technical work. But it is entirely achievable — for healthcare providers, legal and financial firms, professional services organisations and non-profits that understand why it matters.
If you want to know whether it is the right move for your organisation, get in touch for a free 30-minute introductory call. No obligation, just an honest conversation.
