Moving Beyond US Collaboration Tools
Why European organisations are re-evaluating their dependence on American collaboration platforms, and what a practical migration path looks like.
Across Europe, a quiet but significant shift is underway. Organisations that have relied on American collaboration platforms for years — sometimes decades — are beginning to ask whether that dependence is still tenable. The question is no longer theoretical. It is driven by regulation, risk, and a maturing European technology ecosystem that is finally offering credible alternatives.
Why now
The factors pushing European organisations to reconsider their collaboration tools have been building for years, but several developments have brought them to a head.
Regulatory pressure. The EU Data Act, GDPR enforcement actions, NIS2, DORA, and the AI Act collectively create a regulatory environment where the choice of collaboration vendor is a compliance decision. Organisations must demonstrate that personal data, financial data, and sensitive business communications are processed within an appropriate legal and technical framework. Using a vendor subject to the US CLOUD Act complicates this significantly.
Schrems II aftershock. The 2020 invalidation of the EU-US Privacy Shield by the Court of Justice of the European Union created lasting uncertainty. While the EU-US Data Privacy Framework was adopted in 2023, many legal scholars and data protection authorities question its durability. A Schrems III challenge is widely anticipated. Organisations that built their infrastructure on the assumption of stable transatlantic data flows are re-evaluating that assumption.
Geopolitical awareness. The past several years have heightened European awareness of digital dependency. Supply chain disruptions, technology export controls, and shifts in US foreign policy have made the abstract concept of “digital sovereignty” feel concrete and urgent.
Enterprise security incidents. High-profile breaches at major US technology companies — including incidents where government-backed attackers accessed enterprise customer data — have demonstrated that the risk is not theoretical.
The practical concerns
When we speak with European IT leaders about their collaboration infrastructure, several concerns come up repeatedly.
Jurisdictional risk. The US CLOUD Act allows American authorities to compel US companies to produce data stored anywhere in the world. European data centre locations do not insulate against this. For organisations handling sensitive data — financial institutions, healthcare providers, government bodies, defence contractors — this creates an unacceptable jurisdictional exposure.
Vendor concentration. Many organisations have consolidated their collaboration tools around a single US vendor: email, messaging, video, file storage, identity. This creates a deep dependency that is difficult to unwind and gives the vendor enormous leverage over pricing, terms, and feature availability.
Data portability. Extracting data from incumbent platforms can be difficult. Proprietary formats, limited export APIs, and contractual complexity create switching costs that are higher than they should be. The EU Data Act’s portability requirements will help, but enforcement takes time.
Feature-driven lock-in. Integrations between a vendor’s collaboration tools and their broader ecosystem (cloud infrastructure, identity providers, productivity suites) create technical lock-in that goes beyond simple data portability.
What a migration looks like
We will not pretend that migrating from an established collaboration platform to Mandraki is trivial. It is a project that requires planning, stakeholder buy-in, and careful execution. But it is achievable, and many organisations have done it.
Phase 1: Assessment. Audit your current collaboration landscape. What tools are in use? What data do they hold? What are the contractual terms? What are the regulatory requirements? This phase often reveals shadow IT usage and data flows that were not previously documented.
Phase 2: Pilot. Deploy Mandraki for a specific team or use case. Common starting points are a security-conscious department (legal, compliance, executive), a project that involves external collaboration (where federation is valuable), or a new team that does not have existing habits to change.
Phase 3: Parallel running. Run Mandraki alongside existing tools for a defined period. This allows users to become familiar with the platform, surfaces integration requirements, and builds confidence before the switch.
Phase 4: Migration. Export data from the incumbent platform and import it into Mandraki. Our import tools handle common formats for messages, user directories, and channel structures. Historical call recordings can be re-encrypted and stored.
Phase 5: Cutover. Decommission the incumbent tools. Update DNS records, identity provider configurations, and user documentation. Monitor adoption metrics and provide support during the transition period.
What Mandraki offers today
Mandraki today is a complete daily-work suite: group video calls with screen sharing, recording and AI transcription within EU jurisdiction; persistent messaging with threading, channels and direct messages; calendar with scheduling and availability; mail with a managed company mailbox; drive with built-in editors compatible with Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents; tasks and project management; end-to-end encryption for messaging and media; cross-organisation federation; multi-tenancy with domain-verified onboarding; and a management console for operations teams. Mobile applications are available for iOS and Android.
The product still has rough edges, and the largest US platforms have feature surface that took them twenty years and tens of thousands of engineers to build. What Mandraki delivers is the daily-work surface you actually use — calls, chat, mail, calendar, drive with Office editing, tasks — engineered around encryption and EU jurisdiction from the first commit rather than retrofitted onto a US-cloud architecture.
The European alternative is real
Five years ago, telling a European CIO to consider a European collaboration platform was aspirational. The alternatives were too immature, too unreliable, or too feature-poor to be taken seriously.
That has changed. The European technology ecosystem has matured. Sovereign cloud infrastructure from European hyperscalers is production-ready. Encryption standards like MLS and SFrame are IETF-ratified. WebRTC has evolved into a reliable foundation for real-time communication. The engineering talent in Europe is world-class.
The question for European organisations is no longer whether sovereign alternatives exist. It is whether they are willing to make the switch. The regulatory environment says they should. The technology says they can. The rest is a decision.