--- David Bovill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The main problem with the web service paradigm is > for this sort of > application area. Noone is very happy trusting > sensitive data this > way. Would you want your financial or medical data > going over a web > service? Even if secured via HTTPS? Would you even > want your > accounting information stored somewhere else? How > about your contact > information and address book? > > If the answer is no - that should not stop you > taking this seriously. > Look at application areas where this is not a > problem - for us we > intend to practice open accounting (works for a > number of NGO's) - > for others this would most definitely not work > (think Arthur > Anderson / Accenture). >
Hi David et al, At my day-job, we offer a CITRIX-based online solution for companies and accountants. The advantage is that companies can access their data from anywhere on the globe, while their (external) accountant/auditor can do the necessary input of correction bookings. As long as the connection is secure, you can rest assured that the data is safe, as the ASP-providers have rigorous backup and failover procedures in their Service Level Agreements. And the application is automatically updated for you to the latest version. Consider having to setup your own server, paying for a high-speed line in order to host it yourself, having to backup it (we all know how often we backup our own computers and keep a copy in a remote location, aye?) and getting it back online when the whole thing comes crashing down because of a failure. Personally, I didn't think there was a future for online accounting/administrative applications. But for SMBs, it has turned out to be a cost-effective, secure solution, providing global access to critical data. Does this foretell the end of the desktop application? Surely not: internet-enabled desktop applications have their place, just like browser-based applications. Until browsers offer more "widgets" that don't require horrendous Javascripts to control the data entry and limit the round-trips to the server, the building of such solutions will remain hard. Today, we can use Flash or Java applets to mimic the user interface inside a browser, but how does this differ from internet-enabled desktop apps? They run in a browser thanks to a plug-in. Does everything have to run on the server-side, while a thin client shows the result of the changes after a round-trip to the server? To me this sounds like a return to the days of the mainframe, just with a nicer GUI. In a world where we're trying to squeeze the maximum out of our computer resources through grid-computing, the client computer can and should do a lot more than sitting there as a dumb terminal (granted, it would do the work of rendering 3D graphics and Quicktime movies but that's not squeezing the most out of computing resources, IMHO). On a more positive note, as AJAX communicates with the server through web services, we can use Revolution to consume the same web services. In the end, the more convenient access method will have the most users, whether that's a browser-based or internet-enabled desktop application. Just my two cents, Jan Schenkel. Quartam - Tools for Revolution <http://www.quartam.com> ===== "As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more foolish at the same time." (La Rochefoucauld) __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
