Blog

Beyond Claude & GPT

Sure, we enjoy trying out the latest frontier model as much as anyone. But in day-to-day project work, what matters most is control over cost, data, and availability. That’s why we increasingly rely on open-weights models paired with open source tooling. Here’s what our setup looks like.

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Alternatives to U.S. Artificial Intelligence

Claude and GPT have transformed the way I write software, but I’m becoming increasingly uncomfortable with rising costs, vendor lock-in, and our growing dependence on a handful of U.S. providers. After exploring local models and open-weight alternatives hosted in Europe, I was surprised to discover that some lesser-known models can already handle much of my day-to-day work.

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OpenProject: A Real Alternative to Jira?

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Nebu: Self-made sovereignty

There are plenty of open-source alternatives to Slack. None of them deliver real sovereignty. Community editions are deliberately pared down so no company can run them in production, while enterprise features sit behind commercial licenses. This article shows why “building it yourself” is no longer a utopian idea today, but a realistic option for anyone with a product vision and a bit of DIY courage.

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AI Features for Jira Data Center – No Atlassian Cloud Required

Imagine this: after every customer meeting, structured Jira issues are created automatically. You just paste your notes into an AI, and it does the rest. Atlassian already offers that kind of magic in Jira Cloud: natural-language search, automatic summaries, and issue creation from unstructured text. But not everyone wants to move to the cloud, and many teams plan to keep using Jira Data Center through 2029. In this article, we show how to get many of the same benefits on-premises with Jira Server and your own AI stack: GDPR-compliant, resilient to Cloud Act exposure, and without data leaving your environment.

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Managing Geopolitical Risks with Enterprise Architecture

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Achieving Digital Sovereignty with Standard Software

In the context of IT system landscapes, digital sovereignty is often equated with autarky— complete independence from third parties. By that logic, , a company developing and operating all applications in-house would be the ultimate example of digital sovereignty. But does this idea really hold up?

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The Path to Heterogeneous Cloud Platforms

Digital transformation brings both challenges and opportunities for businesses. To create future-proof and flexible IT infrastructures, more and more companies are adopting multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategies. This isn’t just about cost reduction, but also about aligning innovative services from different providers with regulatory requirements - particularly in the area of data protection. This article shows how targeted integration strategies can help you leverage the benefits of multi-cloud to optimize your existing infrastructure, reduce technical dependencies, and ensure long-term business success.

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A Governance Framework for Digital Sovereignty

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Digital Sovereignty: Why Architecture Matters and How to Make Your Company Resilient

In an era where digital systems form the backbone of our economy and society, control over one’s digital future is increasingly becoming the focus of strategic decisions. For many technology decision-makers in German-speaking regions, this is not just a political or regulatory challenge, but a fundamental task with far-reaching implications for software architecture work.

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Data Inventories in the EU Data Act: The Democratization of IoT Devices

Starting in September 2025, the EU Data Act (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854) will require companies that collect or process data from connected devices to maintain comprehensive data inventories.

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Think Locally: On-Premise LLMs as Drivers of Competitive Advantage

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Digital Sovereignty as Self-Understanding

How implementation teams can escape the we-are-not-Google trap and collectively take responsibility for European solutions to European problems.

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EU Data Act: The Beginning of the End for Cloud Monoculture?

What has the EU ever done for us? …well, aside from free movement, no roaming charges, consumer protection, the single market, Erasmus, and more. But also: excessive bureaucracy, slow decisions, overregulation down to the much-mocked bottle cap – a favorite symbol for anyone blaming Europe for every innovation shortfall.

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Digitale Souveränität – Ein Definitionsversuch

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The Sovereignty Trap: Between Tiananmen and Trump

We talk a big game about values and privacy, yet depend on AI that either denies historical atrocities or could cut us off tomorrow. Is this what Europe gets for dropping the ball on high tech infrastructure?

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From Data Graveyards to Knowledge Landscapes

Europe is sitting on a wealth of public data—but much of its potential remains untapped. The challenges are well known: fragmented portals, incompatible interfaces, and growing reliance on non-European platforms that slow innovation. While new industrial data spaces are emerging—enabling secure and sovereign exchange of sensitive information—public and industrial data ecosystems remain largely siloed. This article explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) can help bridge that gap and accelerate Europe’s shift from Open Data to Open Knowledge—supporting digital sovereignty and delivering greater value to society.

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Datensouveränität unterwegs: OpenWebUI trifft Ollama im VPN

Wie ich unterwegs auf dem Smartphone große LLMs auf meinem Notebook benutze

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Bringt eure Schafe ins Trockene: Tipps für politische Risikovorsorge

Eines vorweg: Keine Panik! Das ist aktuell wichtiger als sonst. Leider hat sich die Welt in den letzten Monaten drastisch verändert, sodass nun ein neues Risiko aufgetaucht ist: Die US-basierten Cloud-Dienste, die uns viel ermöglichen, die den Betrieb von Anwendungen so vereinfacht haben und viele Innovationen ermöglichen, könnten auf einmal gegen uns verwendet werden. Sei es politischer Machtmissbrauch oder eskalierender Drang nach Reichtum. Dies ist ein komplett neues Risiko, das auf uns alle in Europa zukommt.

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Digitale Souveränität

Digitale Souveränität bedeutet letztlich, dass Europa die Kontrolle über seine digitale Zukunft behält – technologisch, wirtschaftlich und regulatorisch. Für Unternehmen ist dies nicht nur ein politisches Schlagwort, sondern ein handfester Faktor für Risiko- und Erfolgsbewertung. Doch warum genau sollten Unternehmen bei Entscheidungen zur digitalen Transformation den Aspekt der europäischen Souveränität berücksichtigen?