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LittleTorino: a privacy-first, on-premises communication server solution for SMEs, without recurrent fees

LittleTorino is an on-premises digital communication infrastructure solution that implements all what Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) need: a complete suite for business communications, including email, files sharing, productivity tools and web-meetings.

Unlike solutions from traditional cloud providers, LittleTorino runs entirely on hardware your company has bought and owns, ensuring data sovereignty, GDPR compliance, upon a business model based on buy once, activate with extreme simplicity without breaking a sweat, keep using with no hidden restriction and without any recurring subscription fees.

No server infrastructure or specialized personnel is required to run LittleTorino, as it relies on the power and efficiency of ARM-based embedded systems and is extended with a custom administration dashboard crafted by Virtual Open Systems and made freely available. Its intuitive interface empowers anyone without IT expertise to effortlessly manage cloud-like services, delivering hassle-free operation for small teams in on-premises edge deployments.

privacy-first cloud communication services for business

LittleTorino has been designed by Virtual Open Systems to address concerns arising from cloud communication services high costs, privacy risks and vendor lock-in that entangle SMEs. Any SME that needs secure email, documents, and meetings without building an IT department can benefit from LittleTorino, from small technological companies to law firms or accounting practitioners to small manufacturers, shops, medical entities, etc.

In the next sections, we will describe briefly the problems that cloud communication services pose to SMEs together with the old misconceptions that creates the idea that cloud services are the only solution. LittleTorino is the alternative to cloud services, and we are going to explain why.

Cloud externalized services hidden problems for SMEs

Cloud computing is a powerful technology that performs best in environments that scale quickly and often, with big fluctuations between minimum and maximum values. Such a feature is included in cloud services subscription bills, but never used by most SMEs that instead change constantly and in a progressive way. As a consequence, adapting cloud services to SMEs business communication brings important issues, as detailed below.

Problem 1: Recurrent and unpredictable costs

A dozen Euro per months, per email address, per service seems nothing if we consider the importance of reliable and powerful mail, shared storage and meeting services. However, after 3 years operation, a basic subscription for 10 users can exceed €5,000 (calculated at the current price, but heavily adjusted unilaterally by suppliers every 3-6 months ! ), increasing exponentially with more users or extra storage. And this is not all, it's not just recurring fees! On top of that, closed ecosystems that discourage migrations and unpredictable cost increases (justified by the addition of new unnecessary features) turn a fixed cost into a liability.

relying on SaaS services seems practical, but it hides systemic traps that erode profits, privacy, and autonomy!

Dispelling Cloud Computing Myths

Nevertheless, many SMEs adopt cloud services for their basic communication needs. They do it under common misconceptions that are not true anymore. In fact, embedded systems and open source projects quality matured a lot in recent years. At the same time, a number of security flaws and worldwide services outages highlighted cloud vulnerabilities. For these reasons it is time to challenge old cloud computing myths:

Myth 1: "A subscription is the simplest solution"

Cloud subscriptions promise simplicity, as services like email, productivity suite, meetings come together instantaneously, updated automatically, with a single invoice. However, this comes at a cost of trading data sovereignty and independence, delegating control over privacy, jeopardizing data ownership, and while relying on extremely distant providers for service continuity compromising the green deal. Not to mention that it is made available at prices that are not only unreasonable but also, and above all, subject to wild and unilateral increases.

Myth 2: "Servers are complex, noisy and power hungry"

Servers evokes complexity, but modern appliances like ISP routers, Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices and office printers are indeed powerful servers that work 24/7 with no maintenance required, quiet and with very low energy consumption. Modern embedded systems can provide all what is needed for a company business communication infrastructure in a small box, not bigger than your current ISP router that you are constantly using while even forgetting of having hosted it on your premises.

Myth 3: "I need premium tools, always available from anywhere"

Cloud services charge premiums for features like advanced analytics, live call translation and AI-driven functions that most teams rarely use, yet you pay monthly regardless. Most importantly, enabling AI functions is often a way for cloud providers to formally register consensus to read SMEs sensitive data. As a result, premium tools are often an unnecessary trap you'd better avoid. Moreover, with the democratization of networking technologies like Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which LittleTorino costlessly and seamlessly integrates for you, any computer can be securely reached from anywhere, without requiring professional support or powerful servers.

Myth 4: "Cloud scales effortlessly without limits"

Yes, cloud scalability sounds nice, but SMEs don't scale as quickly and frequently. As a result, SMEs that use cloud services for business communication infrastructure only sees cloud drawbacks: quotas on data storage, email attachment and limited number of web meeting attendees, etc. Such rigid quotas force cloud service plan upgrades that increase costs, even if the SMEs needs did not scale in size. So it is true that cloud scales effortlessly, but with a limit: the customers pockets shrink.

Myth 5: "Cloud is always available and secure"

Data leakage, service providers asking users to change their passwords and unreachable web sites are more and more frequent and not surprising anymore. These things happened, and will happen again in future. In brief, it is not true that cloud is always available and secure: it’s time to realize that the cloud is not infallible, and whenever a problem occurs you are not in a position to control the problem, simply because you even don't know where your data are !

To sum up, old cloud computing myths are not valid anymore. Cloud services are not a perfect solution, and definitely not the only solution anymore. LittleTorino is the alternative, as detailed in the next section.

LittleTorino, the alternative self-hosted email, shareable office suite and storage, meeting tool

LittleTorino is the on-premises digital communication infrastructure solution that empowers small enterprises to break free from cloud vendor lock-in, reclaim the full control on their data ownership, and operate efficiently. It runs on compact, low-power yet powerful hardware and does not require IT support or maintenance, automating operations like updates, snapshots, RAID redundancy, etc. in a way that SMEs can focus on their business while benefitting reduced costs and improved data sovereignty and privacy.

LittleTorino enables a secure, fully controlled digital workspace for your business

LittleTorino is based on top-notch open source projects like Postal and SOGo for robust email handling, OpenCloud for collaborative productivity and file management, Jitsi Meet for secure, unlimited video conferencing and Tailscale for encrypted networking. All installation complexity is hidden to the end users who can start using it in plug and play instant manner. In addition, a specific administration dashboard application is developed by Virtual Open SYstems to effortlessly manage the system.

LittleTorino mail, meeting and productivity applications

Now, let's go into the details of each packaged communication solution.

Email - Postal and SOGo

SOGo and Postal provide the email infrastructure (web email, contacts, calendars, tasks) for LittleTorino. They work with standard protocols, so that SMEs' employees can keep using Outlook, Thunderbird, or native mobile clients with full sync, while a web email interface provides full accessibility from everywhere.

LittleTorino SOGo: fast and reliable webmail

Thanks to SOGo and postal, LittleTorino achieves full ownership of mail flow and data, with predictable capacity in terms of Gigabytes and easy migration. In fact, with LittleTorino you can use your existing email domain and migrate all existing contacts, emails and accounts.

Productivity - OpenCloud

OpenCloud productivity and content collaboration platform (files, sharing, workspaces, and online editing) is included in LittleTorino. It brings cloud-like file access to desktop and mobile, with seamless sync and collaborative workflows, together with real-time document collaboration.

LittleTorino OpenCloud: Free and shared office productivity

With OpenCloud, your data stay on your infrastructure, you own and control it. At the same time, you can benefit from web editors for text documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

Web meetings - Jitsi

Jitsi Meet is the web-meetings component for video calls, screen sharing, and team meetings directly in the browser. No client installation is required for participants, and mobile apps are available for Android and iOS.

Jitsi bring unlimited meetings (no time/attendee caps) to LittleTorino users with a highest audio/video quality and simple “click and join” usability while respecting company privacy.

Administration & networking - VOS Dashboard and VPN

A specific administration dashboard application is developed by Virtual Open SYstems to effortlessly manage multi-site configurations, users, backups, updates, snapshots and system health status all from a single, intuitive web interface without needing specialized IT expertise. This eliminates IT infrastructure burdens entirely; with automatic backups and updates, scheduled snapshots and RAID redundancy for fault tolerance, LittleTorino demands zero daily oversight for reliable, hands-off operation.

15 minutes setup with the VOS Administration dashboard

At the same time, a Tailscale based VPN solution securely connects your devices and LittleTorino into a private network, no matter where they are located. This makes services accessible securely from anywhere.

Download the product presentation and book your LittleTorino demonstration now!

With LittleTorino you escape the restrictive limitations imposed by cloud providers, enjoying data privacy and reduced costs. Say goodbye to per-user fees, arbitrary storage quotas, or price hikes justified by new features that you didn't ask for! LittleTorino is available today. Virtual Open Systems offers a free 1-month demo for companies that want to escape from the proliferation of binding cloud services. Feel free to download and share the LittleTorino product presentation internally within your company and Contact us to book your demo.

Virtual Open Systems Contact

Contact us to know more about the product and its business model, as well as to discuss about LittleTorino product customization.