IONOS Wins Nextcloud School Cloud Contract Worth Up to €67.5 Million

German public-sector cooperative govdigital eG has awarded IONOS a four-year framework contract to provide a Nextcloud-based collaboration platform for schools across six federal states. The agreement covers Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, according to announcements published by both companies on 3 November 2026.

The contract establishes a common procurement route for open-source collaboration services through Germany's cross-state Educational Cloud Infrastructure (PCI) initiative, funded by the Digital Pact for Schools. Participating education authorities can obtain the service according to their needs, while additional German states may join the framework.

The original procurement notice explicitly required the proposed solution to be based on open-source technology. It also called for an integrated environment for file management, collaborative online office applications, email, calendars and contacts. The open-source requirement makes the contract relevant to public-sector digital sovereignty and the availability of alternatives to proprietary services.

The framework agreement has a maximum value of €67.5 million, according to Reuters, citing Germany's official procurement portal. Pricing is based on five active-user tiers, ranging from up to 50,000 to more than 500,000 users. There is no minimum purchase obligation, meaning the contract ceiling does not represent confirmed expenditure.

IONOS will oversee the platform's setup, migration and operation. The service, called IONOS Nextcloud Workspace, will provide file storage, collaborative document editing and communication tools. According to IONOS, it will operate exclusively in German data centres using open-source technologies.

The award makes the service available through a shared purchasing framework rather than requiring an immediate transition. Schools can decide whether to adopt it, and the announcements do not establish how many institutions will migrate, when deployments will occur or how much of the contract value will ultimately be spent.