croit joins ITE - the Association for IT from Europe

croit Joins ITE - the Association for IT from Europe

We are proud to announce that croit is now a member of ITE – the Association for IT from Europe (Verein zur Förderung von IT aus Europa e.V.). Membership brings us together with organizations from business, research, education, and politics that share one goal: strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty and building an IT landscape that is independent, innovative, and sustainable.

Why we joined

For more than a decade, croit has built its business on open technology. Our platform manages upstream, open-source Ceph on hardware of your choice, keeping your data under your control and free from vendor lock-in. That philosophy – open, independent, and built to last – is exactly what ITE exists to promote on a European scale.

ITE is a results-oriented collective with clear criteria, projects, and a shared direction. It aligns with EU initiatives such as the European Chips Act, and it works to make European IT visible, credible, and future-proof – so that European providers can present a common front while staying fully independent. For a company like croit, whose customers increasingly ask where their data lives and who controls it, that mission could not be more relevant.

What ITE stands for

The association organizes its work around four pillars that resonate strongly with how we already think about storage:

  • Legitimacy & trust – making the origin, security standards, and value chain of European IT traceable and verifiable.
  • Visibility & market access – helping European providers achieve a collective presence and highlight real alternatives, instead of competing in isolation.
  • Cooperation & the ability to act – supporting knowledge sharing, working groups, and joint initiatives where individual companies hit their limits.
  • Resilience & future readiness – reducing strategic dependencies and preparing European IT for a dynamic geopolitical and regulatory environment.

What it means for croit customers

Our product stays exactly as it is – what changes is that the principles behind it gain a stronger voice. For us, digital sovereignty is concrete: software-defined storage on open-source Ceph, running on the hardware you choose, with your data staying under your control and within European jurisdiction. Being part of ITE connects us with a wider European network working toward the same outcome, and lets us contribute our storage expertise to it.

Our membership is a statement of commitment to a shared mission rather than a product certification, and it signals where we stand: firmly behind open, trustworthy technology and a resilient European IT ecosystem.

Together for Europe’s digital sovereignty

We are looking forward to contributing to ITE’s projects and initiatives and to working alongside fellow members to strengthen Europe’s digital future – secure, trustworthy, and independent. You can learn more about the association at ite-verein.eu.