This article concerns an old roadmap where some objectives couldn’t be realized. Some were postponed or cancelled, depending on priorities and customer needs.

In 2020, very many of you adopted our kDrive document management solution for small and medium-sized enterprises. We developed kMeet a year ahead of schedule and launched free email addresses to allow everyone to communicate in private. 2021 will see us accelerate the development of these new services and alternatives to the web giants, and we’re actively recruiting to make our existing products evolve more rapidly. We’ll also focus on our partner programme and expand our cloud services for developers and IT engineers.

In sum:

Simplification of our services

Tightening bug hunting, simplifying user management, making it easier to use and configure our products… we’re raising our standards even higher to offer an ever more fluid and efficient experience with our services.

For example, you’ll soon be able to configure all the email addresses of a hosting in a unified way (signatures, rules and filters, security, user rights, etc.). Business will save a huge amount of time as a result.

Improving our support

When you contact our support teams, an intelligent wizard now asks you questions so we can provide you with a relevant answer or instantly display the solution to your problem.

The aim? Speeding up the processing of your enquiries by reducing the number of “back-and-forths” and having more time to help you resolve your issues. Artificial intelligence will allow this new system to continuously improve as cases are resolved.

New services for SMEs and private individuals

Infomaniak’s ecosystem will consolidate, develop and introduce numerous interactions to facilitate your daily activities.

kDrive

Going mobile

In the coming weeks, kDrive will be getting a major update on mobile. This new version of the app will include the new features we’re currently preparing.

Arrival of Smart Sync

Also early next year, we’re launching a new on-demand synchronisation feature designed to save you lots of storage space on your computers. All your folders will be visible, while only the content you’re working on will be downloaded to your device. Everything else will be secured and backed up on at least three media per kDrive.

File encryption (safes)

We’re actively developing safes that will allow you to encrypt the kDrive files of your choice with your own encryption keys. This feature is highly anticipated and should arrive before the end of the second quarter.

We’re developing a Mail app

Infomaniak’s Mail service will be powered by a dedicated mobile application, development of which should begin halfway through 2021. The app will be iOS and Android compliant. The free ik.me email addresses will also be gradually extended to the whole of Europe.

Quickly create websites without being a pro

The start of the year will find us offering a site builder that’ll allow everyone to create attractive device-agnostic websites without spending time learning a CMS like WordPress.

No security worries and no updates to initiate: all users have to do is insert their texts and images and build pages with ready-to-use, fully customisable templates.

A portal dedicated to Infomaniak ticketing events

We’ll be opening a web portal to promote all events organised via the Infomaniak ticketing system. Organisers will be able to display the ticketing portal logo in their communications to facilitate ticket purchasing by their customers.

Still on the agenda…

The pandemic has altered our initial schedule, which we’re looking forward to resume.

Already mentioned in the 2020 roadmap, the Newsletter tool is being completely overhauled next year. It will incorporate a scenario editor and boast a far more ergonomic interface.

Audio streaming will support HLS streams and our video and audio services will very soon switch to the new Manager with a modern and much more powerful management interface.

We’re still planning on making our API publicly available to allow developers to leverage our services from their own interfaces and applications.

2021 will finally see us launch our own Slack-type professional instant messaging service for businesses; it will complement kMeet, our privacy-friendly video conferencing service.

For IT developers and engineers

Data hosting is our core business. In 2021 we’ll be accelerating the development of Infomaniak’s Public Cloud and putting our infrastructure and know-how at the service of your projects, whatever the scale.

S3 Object Storage

We’re soon launching our very own S3 protocol-compliant Object Storage solution. It will allow large quantities of data to be securely stored on infrastructure that’s 100% hosted in Switzerland. This service is perfect for archiving data over the long term (regulatory archiving, medical data, etc.) or for ensuring the integrity of digital assets (public administrations, libraries, scientific studies, digital training, etc.).

Swiss Backup S3

Swiss Backup will very soon be S3-compliant. It will allow data migration from all S3-compliant services and device backup with even more flexibility.

Public Cloud (IaaS)

We’ll be providing an on-demand infrastructure capable of handling any type of workload. This will allow resources to be resized at will with consumption-based billing.

Web hosting

We’re soon going to launch a staging functionality that allows the automatic cloning of environments in preparation for the redesign or evolution of a website without affecting the one that’s live. Our infrastructure will also evolve to incorporate new technologies and it will be even easier to update. All our customers will automatically benefit from these improvements.

Partner programme development

The coming year will also find us making large numbers of changes to the Infomaniak partner programme. A new dashboard will make it easier to manage customers, and it will be possible to adapt the payment method to your preferences (discounts on products or recurring commissions).

We also want to offer a relationship that’s fairer and more relevant. This new system will use verified reviews to single out the best providers. It means a “small independent” with good reviews will be just as likely to be spotlighted as a well-established SME.

Infomaniak’s recruiting to accelerate these developments

In 2020, our workforce grew by 16%; Infomaniak is now a large family of 150 web enthusiasts. This exceptional dynamic will be further driven by the arrival of 15 engineers by the end of January 2021. We’ll continue to hire step-by-step in Geneva and Winterthur, such that Infomaniak should have around 200 people on the payroll by the end of the year.

You decide the future of the web: THANK YOU

Building a true digital alternative requires skills and a great deal of commitment. Your encouragement and feedback pushes us to rise to the challenge and develop independent technologies that are local and that respect privacy.

On behalf of everyone at Infomaniak, thank you for your loyalty and your enthusiasm. Here’s wishing you Season’s Greetings and a great end to the year.