Infomaniak is developing its offer by launching kSuite, a 100% European collaborative office suite designed to compete with the Web giants while respecting privacy. And there is even a free plan!
Infomaniak is developing its services. The Swiss company has in fact just brought together and enriched its various online tools to offer kContinued, a suite of collaborative applications similar to Word, Excel, Power, Point, Teams and others. Mainly intended for companies – but also usable by small structures and associations – and entirely managed from Switzerland, it wants to compete with the suites of GAFAM (Google Apple Facebook Amazon Microsoft). A great ambition!
For those who don’t know, Infomaniak is a Swiss company that has been providing numerous services to companies and the self-employed for more than twenty-five years, starting with website hosting and domain name management. Little by little, it widened its field of action and enormously enriched its offer, in particular with e-mail services (with calendar and diary), online storage (for documents and images, with functions for sharing and collaboration), file transfer, but also – and this is more surprising – marketing (to create newsletters, ticketing or invitations) and streaming. And that’s not counting desktop applications! The big advantage is that the servers are hosted in Switzerland – and therefore fall under a jurisdiction that places a lot of importance on privacy, unlike the United States. And for that alone, kSuite deserves attention.
kSuite: a comprehensive collection of online tools
kSuite looks like “the best free alternative to the web giants”. The message is clear: Infomaniak seeks to compete directly with the GAFAMs by offering similar services, but with much better ethics. As a result, it includes kMail electronic messaging, kCalendar calendar, kContacts (to centralize, share and synchronize contacts), kDrive online storage services (with sharing and collaboration functions) and SwissTranfer, the sharing passwords and sensitive information kPaste, online bureaucratic software kDocs, kGrids and kPoints (all compatible with Microsoft and Google variants like Word, Excel and PowerPoint), and the excellent video conferencing tool kMeet (see our fact sheet). An instant messenger, kChat, will arrive in the fourth quarter of 2022 in beta version.
All of these online services work collaboratively to form a true evolving ecosystem that is committed to protecting the privacy of its users’ data. In short, kSuite works openly on the platforms of Google (Gmail, Meet, Drive, Docs, Calendar, Contacts…) and Microsoft (Outlook, OneDrive, Word, Excel, Teams…). In addition to all these services, kSuite lets you choose your domain name and brand universe (logo, colors, email address, etc.) to customize the entire Infomaniak ecosystem via the Custom Brand function.
kSuite is available through three subscriptions, all of which allow you to take advantage of the entire bureaucratic suite ecosystem and unlimited storage space for messaging. The formula Standard is free for one user – you must add €1.90/month for each additional user – and allows you to benefit from 15 GB of kDrive storage per user. The formula Pro is €7.90/month per user (the annual subscription allows you to benefit from a -50% discount the first year) with 3 TB of storage per user and five shared email addresses. Finally, the formula Company is €14.90/month per user (annual subscription offers a -50% discount the first year) with 6 TB of storage per user, ten shared email addresses and the Custom Brand customization option . For comparison, Microsoft 365 Apps for business costs €8.80/user with 1 TB of storage while Google WorkSpace Business Standard costs €9.36/user with 2 TB of storage.
It should be noted in passing that Infomaniak is abandoning its excellent Etik offer for the occasion, which included several completely free services. It is now replaced by a free plan limited to kDrive (with 15 GB of storage) and kMail (with 20 GB of storage). Always bin to take!
Infomaniak: a company with an ethical vision
One of the big advantages of Infomaniak’s services concerns data confidentiality. Unlike GAFAM, the firm promises not to resell its users’ information to third parties, since it falls under Swiss data protection jurisdiction and also meets the constraints of the European Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). . “Our business model is to protect data, not sell it. We are developing our own ecosystem so we never have to compromise on our values.” Its business model is based entirely on paid subscriptions. To be sure that the data is secure, it is permanently replicated and hosted in Switzerland, on servers managed directly by Infomaniak.
The firm advocates for independent and sustainable privacy protection. This is why it uses only renewable energy to power its various services. Make no mistake about it, it does pollute – manufacturing servers, employee travel, electricity consumption, heating and cooling, waste and recycling… – but it tries to offset its greenhouse gas emissions at a 200% height. As the purchase of new servers is its main source of pollution, the company decided to extend the life of their machines up to fifteen years – it takes seven to ten years of use for a server to emit as much of CO2 than its manufacture. In addition, Infomaniak plans to gradually deploy solar power plants from the spring of 2023 until it produces as much energy as it consumes. The first plant will have a capacity of 600 kWp and will be equipped with Meyer-Burger solar panels, developed in Switzerland and designed in Germany. In the end, kSuite offers itself as a good alternative to the bureaucratic suites of large American companies, even if we must not forget that it is a question of commerce under this philanthropic approach. But it does not prevent. To take advantage of it, all you have to do is create an account.