Gratulerer med dagen, Norge!
On May 17, Norway is mostly about children's parades, ice cream, flags, sore feet, slightly chaotic family logistics and mascara that may or may not survive the weather.
It is not, traditionally, a day for migrating email accounts. And that is exactly as it should be — today belongs to the parades.
Still, when we looked at the calendar, we struggled to think of a better day to open meil.no — a Norwegian productivity suite built around privacy, open standards and long-term user control.
Constitution Day is, in the end, a celebration of independence, participation and the freedom to choose your own direction. That happens to be close to what we are trying to build.
A Norwegian productivity suite
meil.no brings together email, calendar, contacts, files, browser-based document collaboration and video meetings into one platform, operated from Norway by WAYSCloud.
The service is designed around open standards and interoperability, including support for protocols such as IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV, CardDAV and WebDAV. In practice, this means users are not expected to lock themselves into a closed ecosystem in order to take part.
Why May 17
Launching on Constitution Day is not about nationalism or isolation. It is about participation, diversity and the idea that Europe — including its smaller countries — should keep building digital infrastructure, services and alternatives of its own.
"We believe people should have real choices," says Knut Michael Haugland, CEO of WAYSCloud. "Choosing May 17 is symbolic for us. Not because technology should become national, but because openness, independence and long-term control matter more than ever — and there is no better day in Norway to be reminded of that."
Built without advertising or profiling
meil.no is designed without advertising, behavioral profiling or data-driven tracking. Ordinary digital activity — sending email, managing a calendar, sharing files or inviting others to a meeting — is not turned into raw material for an advertising business model.
The basic version of meil.no is free, and is meant to be a genuinely usable alternative for private users, families and smaller teams.
A gradual rollout
The public launch marks the start of a gradual rollout. Migration tooling, onboarding and expanded workspace functionality will continue to evolve over the coming months as the platform scales.
The goal is not to force anyone to migrate overnight. The goal is simply to make alternatives easier to choose over time. All services are stored locally in Norway.
A broader direction
The launch of meil.no is part of WAYSCloud's wider work on Nordic and European digital infrastructure — transparency, portability and reduced dependency on closed platform ecosystems.
As more organisations discuss sovereignty, compliance and trust in cloud infrastructure, WAYSCloud believes that conversation should also include the everyday tools people use to communicate and get work done.
Interest in meil.no has grown steadily ahead of launch, with early registrations from private users, small businesses and technology professionals across the Nordics. The rollout will continue gradually in the days and weeks that follow.
For now, though, the flags come first.
Gratulerer med dagen — and welcome to meil.no.