Nextcloud Hub II brings major overhaul, introducing Nextcloud Office, P2P backup, more

Post date

November 30, 2021

Categories

Press releases

Author

Jos Poortvliet

On-premises collaboration platform introduces major new generations of file share, communication and collaboration tools

Berlin, November 30 2021 – Nextcloud GmbH, the market-leading company behind the worlds’ most deployed on-premises content collaboration platform, announces the immediate availability of Nextcloud Hub II, the second major incarnation of the integrated collaboration platform first announced in January 2020. Nextcloud Hub 2.0 is designed to address the growing market need for an on-premises, compliant and privacy-respecting alternative to closed Big Tech collaboration platforms.

Large Nextcloud customers of half a decade like the German federal government and the worlds third-largest Telco provider, as well as new customers and partners like Luxembourg and Deutsche Telekom are accelerating their deployments and looking to expand functionality. With this release, Nextcloud also responds to the growing interest in Germany and central Europe, reflected both in major deployments like in Schleswig-Holstein and through political decisions by the incoming German coalition.

With this release come major feature and performance improvements to Files, Groupware, Talk and the Nextcloud clients, while introducing Nextcloud Office developed in collaboration with Collabora Productivity. Nextcloud is now available for easy and quick small-scale deployment on the major cloud platforms and on-premises with an All-In-One Docker-based cloud image and features a peer-to-peer Backup solution for small installations.

This release presents a massive jump forward in terms capabilities, performance and integration for Nextcloud, marking it as the second major generation of our vision for Nextcloud Hub. As number one collaboration platform in Germany and the choice of collaboration platform for the Gaia-X project, Nextcloud is seeing an acceleration of deployments all over the world and in Europe in particular.

— Frank Karlitschek, CEO Nextcloud GmbH

Nextcloud Hub II introduces Nextcloud Office, developed in collaboration with Collabora Productivity. With an improved user experience and visual integration come also features like availability of Draw, a business-focused vector graphics and data visualization app, improved compatibility with proprietary document formats and more. Performance was another focus, with a lower bandwidth usage and server load resulting from the development work.

This release also expands Nextcloud office capabilities with public sharing support for the integrated Knowledge management app Collectives, usability upgrades to planning tool Deck and an emoji picker and extended mimetype support for collaborative note taking app Text.

Nextcloud Files introduces the ability for administrators to delegate administration to users and support for a configuration setting that limits what apps can be installed. Users can create a profile page, and User Status can be set automatically based on activities like a call in progress or vacation in the calendar. File syncing performance with small files is improved with the ability to bulk upload small files by the desktop client. Search speed and S3 external storage performance have been increased by an order of magnitude.

In Groupware, the Calendar application introduces advanced room and resource search, configurable availability for free/busy and external appointment booking as known from the Calendly SaaS platform. The Mail app brings an improved layout, spam handling, improved multi-account provisioning, IMAP tagging compatible with Apple Mail, Thunderbird and Evolution and the creation of Calendar events from email messages.

Nextcloud Talk comes with background blur in its web interface and a device check screen before starting a call. Moderation capabilities have been enhanced, giving moderators the ability to add and remove audio, video and screen share permissions from users. The Lobby screen can get a custom description and timer and individual waiting users can be brought into the conversation while the other participants remain in the lobby. The flexibility of audio/video connection quality was increased to better adjust to various network conditions.

The Nextcloud desktop, Android and iOS clients coming with this release come with support for Unified Search, User Profiles and User Status on all platforms. The Android app also introduces calendar backup/restore and an improved video player for streaming. The iOS app comes with native media integration and picture-in-picture. The Desktop Client now supports End-to-end encryption with the Virtual File System on Windows and introduced a dialog to resolve file name issues. Various user interface improvements including an enhanced activity dialog with file activity and sync status/progress as well as support for directly sharing files to a Talk conversation or email address complement the Desktop Client release.

Together with the launch of Nextcloud Hub II, Nextcloud makes available Nextcloud Backup a peer-to-peer backup solution, and an All-in-one docker container aimed at distributed cloud deployments.

About Nextcloud

Nextcloud Hub is the industry-leading, fully open-source, on-premises team productivity platform and Germany’s number one collaboration solution. It combines the easy user interface of consumer-grade cloud solutions with the security and compliance measures enterprises need. Nextcloud Hub brings together universal access to data through mobile, desktop and web interfaces with next-generation, on-premise secure communication and collaboration features like real-time document editing, chat and video calls, putting them under the direct control of IT and integrated with existing infrastructure.

Nextcloud’s easy and quick deployment, open, modular architecture and emphasis on security and advanced federation capabilities enable modern enterprises to leverage their existing file storage assets within and across the borders of their organization. For more information, visit nextcloud.com or follow Nextclouders on Twitter.