We're thrilled to announce the latest long-term support (LTS) release of Element Server Suite. This release represents a significant leap forward, especially for some of our larger customers who are using our previous LTS release of ESS which came out in October last year. This release focuses on enhanced reliability, new features, crucial bug fixes and improved security measures. Let's delve into the highlights brought to the table in this version.

We are excited to announce a ground-breaking collaboration between Element and BigBlueButton, marking a significant step forward in the realm of virtual classroom technology in the education sector. This partnership signifies our joint commitment to revolutionising online communication and collaboration, and we are ecstatic about the possibilities that lie ahead.

The new Secure Communications Solutions Landscape Q2 2024 (subscription required) report, from Forrester Research, categorises the secure communications marketplace as having progressed from ‘Emerging’ to now be identified as ‘Established.’ There are many milestones on any journey, but we feel this is a significant one.

United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC) has selected Element as its secure communications platform, following a competitive tender process. UNICC is the largest strategic partner for digital solutions and cybersecurity within the United Nations system. It designs and deploys transformational digital tools and programmes to support over 90 partners in fulfilling their mandates.

Tele2, the Swedish network operator, has entered into a partnership agreement with Element. The partnership will see Element being provided by Tele2 as part of a new service called Tele2 Collaborate (Tele2 Samarbete), a fully managed, secure and digitally sovereign communications service for the Swedish public sector. Element will complement Tele2’s existing portfolio of products and services to address secure messaging and collaboration, and to combat shadow IT issues from consumer messaging apps.

The Future of Secure Communications, a study from Forrester Consulting that Element commissioned, shows that 79% of technology leaders at large organisations feel their sanctioned video conferencing tools fall short in adequately supporting secure and reliable partner communications. Likewise, 76% said their sanctioned voice tools were not well suited to secure communication.

March 7th 2024 is the deadline for large messaging providers (so called ‘gatekeepers’) to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act regulation, which requires them to offer interoperability to third party messaging services. This lets users use their preferred messaging service, rather than being obligated to use the same service that their contacts happen to be on.

We’ve created a common cryptographic library implementation in Rust - codenamed Element R - for all our Element clients. With the latest release of Element Web and Desktop, the new implementation is now deployed across all of our mobile and desktop apps (iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, Linux and Web) and means we can now start to realise its full potential.

In the midst of winter, while many resolutions may fade, at Element we remain steadfast in our commitment to excellence. In our latest ESS release (24.02), we've been laser-focused on improving our installation process for customers who self-host their servers. Below we unveil the latest updates and stories from behind the scenes.

Hi all, As we announced in November, Element is switching to use the Affero General Public License (AGPLv3) for its future contributions to Synapse and related backend Matrix projects. The repositories will live at github.com/element-hq (newly renamed from our old outdated name of github.com/vector-im); we’re switching them over starting today, commencing with Synapse.