The Schwarz Group behind Lidl and Kaufland is now actually entering the cloud business with some delay.
The retail group is thus competing with the large American tech groups Google, Amazon and Microsoft, among others.
As the group announced on Tuesday, the cloud services and data centers are now also available to customers outside the group.
Gustave parts
Business correspondent in Stuttgart.
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This means that the company is launching its offer called "Stackit" with a delay of almost a year.
Originally there was talk of mid-2021.
"The cloud market itself is dominated by non-European providers," Christian Müller, CEO of the IT branch of the Schwarz Group, is quoted as saying in a statement.
The new offer is now a "sovereign European alternative".
According to him, the company attaches great importance to data security and data protection.
The data centers are located in Germany and Austria and are fully subject to European law and the General Data Protection Regulation.
Initially, the focus will be on solutions for small and medium-sized companies in all sectors and on technology start-ups, said Müller.
The team currently consists of 150 employees and is constantly growing.
According to the group, the group's own cloud platform was initially developed in 2018 for internal work in order to advance digitization.
After that, the service was expanded to also be attractive for external customers.
Thanks to the internal experience, one can now offer “comprehensive advice and thus the best possible service”.