I will speak up a little for the positive case for cloud-based computing
and apps. In the IT Manager position I recently left the motivator for
looking at web apps was PEOPLE; specifically problems with our in-house
people.
Making a long story short, I had built an entirely in-house M$ shop
supported by people I hired plus occasional consulting especially for
network / Cisco support. We had about 12 servers, 160 desktops, a very
elaborate WAN, M$ Suite plus an in-house M$ WSUS for their flood of
updates. The team was 3 people: myself, a sys admin and a desktop tech.
The workload was heavy and I relied on the motivation of the two hired
staff to be learning M$ stuff toward becoming full M$ experts. The overall
economics of in-house machines and fully burdened in-house staff made sense
for a while.
The people problems started as competition between my two staff people.
Productivity and teamwork began to stink; deadlines were flaunted; Helpdesk
calls took longer. For a million different reasons (excuses) neither I nor
the organization found a way to deal with the people problems. We had built
in an addiction to in-house expertise and when our own people went sour
nobody, myself included, had the cojones to correct it.
So we started to look at web apps. The economics were looking good. Buy
more bandwidth, pay the monthly costs and get rid of at least 1 bad actor,
maybe both! I left their employment mostly for personal reasons, a death
in the family. But even so, "mostly" is the key word.
Six months later the organization has increased the bandwidth and
(temporarily?) solved lots of WAN performance issues. The people problems
and how to support the burden of M$ apps and their security issues remains
unsolved. Status quo.
In summary, I agree with all the technical reasons and security concerns
expressed about web / cloud apps. It was people-problems that blew down
the house.
Upon reflection, this calls for LO to build a community of support people
that can support small to medium sized businesses and avoid the siren call
of M$ style big money and big ego. Good luck! No, seriously, good luck to
us all.
--
David S. Crampton
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 07:35:51 -0800, webmaster for Kracked Press
Productions <webmaster@krackedpress.com> wrote:
On 12/14/2011 10:18 AM, Caesar wrote:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:07:38 -0500, webmaster for Kracked Press
Productions<webmaster@krackedpress.com> wrote Re Re:
[libreoffice-users] Re: When will be a Web-Version of OOo/LO
available?:
Personally, I do not like the idea of cloud based computing, for
security reasons and ownership of files. If the connection to the
Internet is down on your end or theirs, you do not have access to your
data.
Excellent points.
The whole 1980s migration from central computers w/dumb terminals to
PCs was motivated in large part by the desire to spread the computing
load and sever the "umbilical cord/chain" that central mainframe
computers required. In most rural areas of the U.S. today, dial-up
modem is as good as it gets, and that won't facilitate the "cloud".
I was part of the movement. I even saw PCs used as dumb terminals for
a time with software like "Kermit" being used since it had the ability to
upload/download the files to the central systems like we do with FTP
clients and the web.
Yes, I know a lot of people who either can only get dial-up in their
areas, or cannot afford the price for broadband. I am currently lucky to
have broadband, but with a fixed income, and the fees going up for
everything, I may not have it in the future. Or, I may keep it and drop my
current digital phone system for some cheaper and less reliable one that is
based off my PC or my purchased network device that does Internet phone
calls.
So, if you want to use cloud computing and file storage, you better
remain in the cities. In the more rural areas where people like to live to
get away from the crowd, you are out of luck.
--
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