Architecture review

SOVEREIGN WORKPLACE · SMEs

Keep working when Microsoft 365 stops. In six weeks, on a sovereign workplace.

In many SMEs, email, calendars, files, chat and video calls all sit with a single provider. When that provider goes down, so does the business. With the Sovereign Workplace package we move these services in six weeks to Openspace: a working environment built on open-source software that runs in Switzerland or the EU, uses open formats, and that you can take over yourself or move to another operator at any time.

Request the Sovereign Workplacecontact@dxzio.ch

The typical client

An SME from Germany, Austria or Switzerland with 10 to 250 employees that works with Microsoft 365 today: Exchange Online and Outlook for email and calendars, OneDrive and SharePoint for files, Teams for chat and meetings. There is no IT department of its own, or it consists of one or two people. The trigger is often an outage, a price increase, or a customer asking where their data is stored.

What you have after six weeks

A mail suite for email, calendars and contacts, with webmail and sync for mobile devices, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and Outlook. Document management with file storage and sharing, synced to the desktop. An office suite your team uses to edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations together in the browser. Team chat and video calls with screen sharing. A single sign-on for every service, with two-factor authentication, and a password vault. On top of that come daily backups with a rehearsed restore, monitoring with alerts, an operations manual and training for your staff. By then your existing mailboxes, calendars, contacts and files have been migrated.

Sovereign does not mean self-sufficient

We do not promise you IT without dependencies. This workplace also needs software, a data centre and people to run it. The difference is that you know each of these dependencies and can change it. The software is open source. Your data is stored in open formats and reachable through open standards, so it can be exported in full at any time. The entire configuration belongs to you. In week 6 we rehearse the emergency together: we restore your environment from backup at a second location. After that you know how long a switch takes instead of having to guess.

How we work ourselves

We work with Openspace ourselves (mail suite, document management, office suite, team chat, video calls, single sign-on and password vault). What we set up for you, we know from our own daily work, including the rough edges. AI assistants work in Openspace with us as well: they search and read documents, set up mailboxes and fetch credentials from the password vault. Each assistant has its own account with the central sign-on and reaches the services only through a single gateway that defines what it may do. Our assistants may read documents, but not change or delete them.

Where the workplace runs

On your own hardware, with a provider of your choice in Switzerland or the EU, or on our platform in the EU. The configuration and the data belong to you, so you can take over operations yourself or switch providers at any time.

Six weeks, one rehearsed switch

01 /

Week 1: assessment

We record mailboxes, data volumes, teams and shares, along with everything else that depends on Microsoft 365: macros, forms, connected business applications. You receive an inventory of your dependencies and a migration plan. On Friday you decide whether to continue or to stop and keep the inventory and the plan.

02 /

Week 2: setup

Sign-in with two-factor authentication, mail suite, document management, office suite, chat and video calls. Backups and monitoring run from day one.

03 /

Week 3: pilot

A pilot group works in the new environment for a week, with their own mailboxes and files. Whatever causes friction, we fix before everyone else moves.

04 /

Weeks 4 and 5: migration

Mailboxes, calendars, contacts and files move in stages, outside your working hours. Microsoft 365 keeps running in parallel until then.

05 /

Week 6: cutover and handover

Mail delivery is switched over. We rehearse the restore at a second location, train your staff and hand over the operations manual.

Frequently asked questions

Do we have to give up Microsoft 365 entirely?

No. You decide service by service. If you need Excel files with macros, you keep a few Office licences for them and still store the files in the new document management. What matters is that email, files and communication no longer all depend on one provider.

Can we keep using Outlook and our Office files?

Yes. Outlook can be connected to the mail suite, for email as well as for calendars and contacts. Word, Excel and PowerPoint files can be opened and edited in the browser and in any common office application. Files with extensive macros are checked one by one in week 1.

What cannot be replaced like for like?

Telephony through Teams, Power BI, Power Automate and processes built in SharePoint. After week 1 these dependencies are listed in the inventory, each with a proposal to replace it or to keep it deliberately.

What happens if this workplace goes down?

This environment can fail too. Monitoring reports an outage immediately, backups run daily, and the restore has been rehearsed. So you know how long it takes, and if need be you can bring the workplace back up with a different provider.

Who runs the workplace afterwards?

You decide. Your team or your IT partner takes over with the operations manual and training, or we run it for a fixed monthly price.

Can we use AI assistants in Openspace?

Yes, if you want to. Openspace is reachable through open interfaces, so assistants can be connected. We set them up the way we work ourselves: each assistant gets its own account, starts with read access and receives further rights only when you decide so. You determine which language model processes your content and where it runs. Connecting assistants is not part of the fixed six-week scope; we discuss it in week 1 and quote it separately.