13th Univention Summit: Important steps towards digital sovereignty

Bremen, February 2, 2021 – “The Corona crisis has relentlessly exposed Germany’s weaknesses in digitization – nevertheless, we achieved a great deal in the past year,” said CEO Peter Ganten, summarizing Germany’s situation at the Univention Summit 2021 on January 29. Under the slogan “Digital Sovereignty – Spread possibilities, not dependencies”, representatives from the IT industry and user organizations gathered at the central meeting point of the German open source community. They informed themselves on trends in IT modernization and exchanged tips and solutions for more digital sovereignty in 35 lectures, workshops and round tables. 26 partners from the IT industry participated. In its 13th year, the event was purely virtual for the first time. However, this format was very well received by the more than 600 active participants of the various live streams, virtual demo points and digital group rooms. In comparison to 2020, Univention registered a significant increase in the number of participants.

NextCloud, Open-Xchange and Univention partner to create Sovereign Productivity Suite

Bremen, January 29, 2021 – Three of the biggest names in Open-Source software, Nextcloud, Open-Xchange and Univention, have signed a partnership agreement to join forces to develop and offer a complete suite of software specifically for the public sector – the Sovereign Productivity Suite (SPS).

Combining products already proven in the market with more than 100 million users, SPS will integrate best of breed Open-Source software from each of the partners. The suite will include an online user portal for easy access to mail, calendar, contacts and tasks, along with online file sync and share, video conferencing and chat, user management features, and an Appstore.

Univention records above-average growth in 2020

Bremen, January 5, 2021 – With its solutions for the secure, independent and efficient operation of IT infrastructures, the Bremen-based open source vendor Univention achieved an increase in sales of more than 35% in 2020 compared to the previous year. The company was able to triple the number of users of its solution UCS@school in the education sector in the past months, now recording around 1.5 million users. 16,000 active instances of the core product Univention Corporate Server (UCS) are used in organizations with an enterprise subscription or as a free core edition.

Order from Dataport for Open Source collaboration platform Phoenix

Dataport has commissioned a consortium of partners, consisting of Univention, Bechtle, Fraunhofer and Capgemini with the creation of a web-based collaboration platform building on Open Source products by Univention. This platform is to enable the gradual shift of the software infrastructure used in public administration and education towards Open Source. The goal is to largely replace proprietary software by 2025 and bolster the digital sovereignty of public-sector organisations. The consortium’s partners will be supported by an extensive network of partners within the Open Source community, as well as the private and public sectors. Other established Open Source solutions will be integrated into the platform over the coming months.

12th Univention Summit 2020: Focus on Digital Sovereignty

Bremen, January 8, 2020 – Univention invites users, IT experts and technology manufacturers to the 12th Univention Summit in Bremen. Following the slogan “be open for digital sovereignty”, around 400 participants will be discussing the latest IT trends on January 23 and 24, 2020. Experts will provide practical tips for the secure and confident design of IT infrastructures and the secure management of digital identities. Another focus will be the digitization of education, which has gained additional momentum after the adoption of the DigitalPakt Schule (digital pact for schools). In addition, numerous IT managers from companies, administration and the education sector will report on the modernization of their organizations using open source software.

Nursing and support agreement with the Max Planck Society including cost absorption

Bremen, November 27, 2019 – Due to the high interest of several Max Planck Institutes in using Univention Corporate Server (UCS) as a central identity management and platform for connecting various other services, a maintenance and support agreement between Univention and the Max Planck Society (MPG) was made last year. This agreement defines the scope of the use of UCS Enterprise
Subscriptions including maintenance and support. All institutes of the Max Planck Society can thus use a UCS standard subscription with an unlimited number of users and servers quickly and easily within the framework agreed in the contract.

Univention adds Seafile, Wekan and Zammad to its App Center

Bremen, October 1, 2019 – Adding apps to corporate IT with a single click instead of complex installations – the advantages of Univention’s App Center have become well known to customers and software providers. The specialist for IT infrastructure and identity management reports prominent growth for its platform: The dropbox alternative Seafile, Kanban board and Trello competitor Wekan as well as the German Zendesk competitor Zammad are now available in the App Center. The software app supply for the operation on a Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is thus growing by three popular business applications.

Many small improvements and one extension: UCS 4.4.1 with REST API (beta) released

Bremen, July 16, 2019 – Our first point release of UCS 4.4 includes all minor improvements and bugfixes of the updates released over the past months and also brings some exciting new features:

Univention Directory Manager (UDM): More performance, improved functionality and a new REST API as beta version

There are significant performance improvements for managing the contents of the directory service via UDM, especially for application scenarios with complex structures. A brand new feature is the REST API for UDM, which considerably facilitates the integration of UDM with other applications. This REST API has been released as beta version for the time being. After further tests and improvements we plan to release a stable version in autumn.

Univention Corporate Server 4.4: More Security and Ease of Use

Bremen, March 12, 2019 – Univention has launched the latest release of Univention Corporate Server (UCS). The enhancements of version 4.4 focus on a number of new features, higher security and more comfort. With the application “Admin Diary”, UCS now supports administrators in making administrative activities traceable. For more security, password policies can be defined more strictly and flexibly with the new version. UCS 4.4 has also added support for trusts, which enables the integration of services operated in Microsoft domains. Users can now enjoy an enhanced Self Service that eliminates the need for numerous admin requests. At the same time as UCS, Univention is releasing an updated version of UCS@school specifically for schools and school authorities, making it much easier to connect to external services.