I could talk about Nicki Borell for ages.
Nicki, the ECS speaker from 2013 onwards. A wealth of knowledge that he was always happy and eager to share with everyone. One of the best experts in Microsoft technologies I have ever met.
Nicki, one of the cornerstones of the German SharePoint community, which evolved into the Microsoft 365 / Cloud Community. He was there from the beginning. He was there at almost every community event. He was blogging. He was pushing things forward.
Nicki, the novelist. The side of him that not many people were aware of. A published author: you can buy his books on Amazon.
Nicki, one of the kindest people in the world. I don't know anyone who ever said a single bad word about him. I don't know anyone whom Nicki didn't help.
And, above all, Nicki, the friend. The memory of all the moments we spent together, at various events we both attended, at his home or ours, or checking whether the favourite Italian restaurant in Kaiserslautern was still as good as it used to be...
We didn't want to remove his name from the ECS 2026 speaker list until the very last moment. Nicki was a fighter, and we thought he would fight this one through too. He didn't. Even the biggest fighters give up eventually. For the next few days, all ECS media channels will be devoted to Nicki. It's the least we can do for one of our best speakers. For our friend.