Data protection and the cloud are frequently discussed topics. The term "cloud" itself is a broad one. For SMEs and associations in particular, however, the cloud is primarily about online storage space for sharing data and collaborative working.

Sharing data with customers or clients is also a common use case.

Riccabona eSolutions e.U. offers cloud hosting products based on Nextcloud for this purpose. Nextcloud is an open source product from Germany that has also been used by authorities and political institutions in the EU for several years and is also provided with the financial means for further development.

The servers of Riccabona eSolutions e.U., on which these products run, are located without exception in the EU or Switzerland, in data centers of European companies.

Nextcloud itself is highly customizable with so-called plugins. From simple file storage, shared calendars and address books, mail clients, collaborative editing of office documents and the management of shared expenses (e.g. for sailing crews) that are to be split, through to Kanban-style project management tools, nothing is left to be desired. We customize the system according to your wishes and needs and ensure smooth technical operation.

We also use A.I. to a certain extent for our customers. However, this is always done under human editorial control and in accordance with data protection regulations.

We mainly use so-called LLM (Large Language Model) applications, which are already well known to many end users today, for example under the following product names: ChatGPT, Claude, DeepL, CoPilot and many more.

We also offer our customers a corresponding integration in TYPO3 Enterprise CMS to greatly speed up translation work for editors by the use of LLMs.

In addition, we offer knowledge about the AI regulation and contacts to lawyers who can provide in-depth advice on this legal matter.

Buzzwords. A phenomenon that has been an integral part of the IT and Internet business since the dotcom bubble at the latest.

Web 2.0 - “the participatory internet”, big data, blockchain, crypto, metaverse, mobile first ... this is just a highly incomplete collection of the terms that are often thrown around, especially in marketing and business meetings, although those who like to use them frequently often only have a highly imprecise idea of what they mean in technical terms.

From the mid-2010s, “cloud” or “cloud computing” was a fixed star in the buzzword firmament alongside big data, crypto and blockchain.

And since around 2022, there has been a new star in the buzzword firmament. Its name is AI.

The funny thing is that, firstly, the majority of applications that are presented today as “A.I.” in an investor-friendly way are ‘only’ LLM applications (Large Language Models), and secondly, the expression “artificial intelligence” is rather misleading. The word “artificial” in A.I. has more the meaning of “pretended”. And that's where we come to the crux of the matter: the expectations placed in this artificial intelligence can probably not be fully satisfied because the term “artificial intelligence” raises expectations that cannot be fulfilled with the current state of technology with deep learning, generative AI and transformer models.