Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Rolls Out Nextcloud to 50,000 Public Workers

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has begun rolling out a statewide Nextcloud collaboration platform, with the goal of moving more than 50,000 public-sector employees in the German state off proprietary file-sharing and onto an open-source stack. Around 5,000 staff already use the platform for file sharing. The medium-term plan is to extend chat, videoconferencing, and groupware features across ministries and municipal institutions.

The deployment runs under a state-controlled model: DVZ M-V GmbH, the state’s IT service provider, runs the platform on infrastructure the state itself owns. The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern statewide Nextcloud rollout is the operational face of a digital-sovereignty strategy the state government has been building for years.

What Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Just Switched On

The state opted for a collaboration platform it can audit, run, and modify without depending on any single vendor’s roadmap. The software runs under the GNU AGPLv3 license, which lets the state, and any outside party, inspect and adapt the source code as security and feature requirements shift over time.

The project was built on an “open source by design” footing, with separate testing and production environments, operational training, security reviews, and prioritised integration of stability updates. The state treats audit rights as a core feature of the rollout, not an afterthought: code changes can be reviewed inside the state’s own staff before they ship into the production tier.

DVZ M-V GmbH, headquartered in Schwerin and the long-standing IT service provider for the state’s public administration, runs the deployment on infrastructure entirely under state control. Around 5,000 employees use the platform for file sharing today. The next phase, with chat, videoconferencing, and groupware added, would extend the reach to more than 50,000 public-sector staff across ministries and municipal institutions.

The transition away from Microsoft SharePoint has been completed step by step, without disruption or data loss for employees. Together with DVZ M-V, we have built a platform that runs reliably today and continues to expand step by step.

Marco Anschütz, CIO of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, made the comment in the state’s rollout announcement. The deployment sits inside the state’s broader open-source strategy, alongside other tools that have been added to the public-sector stack over the past several years.

Why a German State Is Walking Away from Microsoft

The political framing inside the state government is digital sovereignty. Dr Heiko Geue, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s Minister of Finance and Digitalisation, calls open source and sovereignty the cornerstones of the state’s digitalisation policy. He says the state plans to keep expanding open source and pushing common standards and open interfaces, since those tools are the only way the state and municipalities will hold the power to act.

The sovereignty framing reflects a calculation about how state IT should be governed, not about short-term cost. By running the collaboration layer on open code, the state holds the ability to alter the platform without renegotiating a contract with an external vendor. Vendor lock-in, in that view, is a strategic risk the state wants to reduce, even if the open-source route costs more during the transition itself.

The same logic has pushed other public-sector bodies in Berlin, Munich, and Brussels to plan moves away from US cloud and productivity stacks. European procurement frameworks increasingly require open standards, open interfaces, and audit-ready code as preconditions for bids. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s choice is part of that wider pressure, not a stand-alone experiment.

The Schleswig-Holstein Pact Built Into This Rollout

The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern rollout does not land in isolation. In November 2025 the state signed a cooperation agreement with Schleswig-Holstein, the German state further north that has been the country’s most visible open-source migration site for years.

Schleswig-Holstein has run further down the same road already. Nearly 80 percent of Schleswig-Holstein workplaces are now on LibreOffice, and the state’s chancellery has also announced a joint effort with Nextcloud to develop AI that runs on locally hosted large language models for government document work. The state’s own migration path was the reference point for much of the planning that produced Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s announcement.

The cooperation agreement ties procurement to shared standards and open interfaces across both states, an effort with practical consequences, including aligned procurement and shared rules. Officials from each side meet on a regular cadence now, a sign that the pact is meant to be operational rather than ceremonial.

Both states treat digital sovereignty as a procurement constraint, not an aspirational slogan, and both have publicly committed to widening the open-source footprint inside their own administrations. The pact functions as a small bloc of aligned states, anchored in northern Germany, that can co-develop tooling and speak with one voice in federal-level procurement debates.

The Open-Source Stack Building Up Around Nextcloud

Nextcloud is one slice of the state’s planned open-source stack, not the entire one. In parallel to the Nextcloud work, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is adopting OpenProject as an alternative to proprietary project management tools, and has developed LEA, an AI-based administrative chatbot built on OpenWebUI, as a locally controlled AI assistant for the public sector.

The shape of the planned stack is itself the story. A collaboration layer, a project management layer, and a resident-facing AI front end form a coherent group of sovereign tools, each replacing a kind of US-vendor offering that has dominated European public-sector IT for years.

Bundled together, they begin to look like the European alternative stack public-sector buyers have been promised for years, in working production form inside a single German state. The presence of OpenWebUI underneath LEA, in particular, hints at the state’s plan to keep its AI tooling inside inspectable code too, rather than buying chatbot access from a third party.

A European Wave Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Now Joins

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is not the only large public-sector body in Europe leaning this way. The state’s own announcement cites a roster of reference deployments.

• Schleswig-Holstein, Germany: Nextcloud in state administration, plus nearly 80% of workplaces on LibreOffice.
• French Ministry of Education: Nextcloud for 400,000 employees, with a published plan to extend to 1.2 million.
• Austrian Ministry of Economic Affairs: cited by Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as a Nextcloud user.
• French Ministry for the Energy Transition: cited by Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as a Nextcloud user.

Outside government software itself, a wider set of European vendors is lining up around the same logic. Earlier this year, a coalition of European firms including IONOS, Nextcloud, Eurostack, XWiki, OpenProject, Soverin, Abilian, and BTactic launched Euro-Office, an open-source office suite aimed at replacing Microsoft Office. The first stable release shipped on June 9, integrated into Nextcloud Hub 26 Spring. Euro-Office’s first stable release arrived on a sovereign-tide day that included other European commitments, with IONOS’ Nextcloud Workspace planning to roll it out later that summer. The project, summarised in the European open-source push to break from Microsoft, illustrates the supplier side catching up with the buyer side.

France’s parallel path runs deeper than office software. France’s Ministry of Education runs Nextcloud for 400,000 staff and plans to extend to 1.2 million. Separately, the French government has set a 2026 timeline for a full exit from Microsoft Windows across ministries, a position tracked in France’s parallel Microsoft Windows exit by 2026.

With Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, yet another German state is now committing to Nextcloud as a sovereign collaboration platform, in close alignment with Schleswig-Holstein. This shows once again that solutions are available and ready to deploy.

Frank Karlitschek, CEO and founder of Nextcloud, framed the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern move as a confirmation of an already visible pattern. It positions the deployment inside the wider adoption that has been visible for years in European public-sector IT.

From 5,000 Users Today to 50,000 Tomorrow

The rollout’s near-term question is the gap between current users and the long-term staff target. About 5,000 public-sector employees use the Nextcloud platform today. The state plans to bring more than 50,000 staff, including ministry workers and municipal employees, onto the same system over time.

The state government has not published a calendar for hitting that target. The completed SharePoint exit and the active-user base form the operational foundation from which the next phase is meant to expand; whether the distance closes in one push or in waves across ministries and municipalities is not yet on the public record.

Public-sector IT rollouts usually unfold across years. The target is a destination, and the distance Mecklenburg-Vorpommern still has to cover is large enough that it has not been described as imminent even inside the state’s own announcements.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Mecklenburg-Vorpommern rolling out?

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a German federal state, is rolling out a statewide collaboration platform based on Nextcloud, intended to reach more than 50,000 employees in state and municipal administration. Staff already use it for file sharing. DVZ M-V GmbH, the state’s IT service provider, runs the deployment.

Is the move replacing Microsoft SharePoint?

Yes. Marco Anschütz, CIO of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, says the transition away from Microsoft SharePoint has been carried out step by step, without disruption or loss of data for employees. The Nextcloud deployment is the platform that now sits behind that exit.

What license runs the platform?

The software runs under the GNU AGPLv3 license, an open-source license that lets the state, and any outside party, inspect and adapt the source code under defined terms. The state treats audit rights as a core feature of the project.

Are other German states doing the same?

Yes. Schleswig-Holstein, the state further north, has been a higher-profile open-source site for years; nearly 80% of workplaces in the state government there have moved from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. The two states signed a cooperation pact in November 2025. Outside Germany, the French Ministry of Education already runs Nextcloud for 400,000 employees and plans to extend it to 1.2 million.

What open-source stack sits next to Nextcloud in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern?

The state is also adopting OpenProject as an alternative to proprietary project management, and has built LEA, an administrative AI chatbot built on OpenWebUI, intended as a locally controlled AI assistant for the public sector.