Click items to expand or collapse
If you have a favorite not listed, please let us know!
The following are considered minimum specifications
The simple answer is that cloud based solutions are inadequate. People often come to us asking for a cloud based solution for managing their business. Unfortunately, many people rely on promotion rather than information and fact. As you'll read on, you'll find that the "cheap deal" is more often a case of "you get less than what you pay for".
The cloud is actually a reintroduction of a very old idea, the centralized mainframe. Mainframe computing has been around since the ENIAC in 1942. Like the mainframe, the cloud is a pay as you go service that vends data to you stored on a cloud provider's computer system. Forget the hype. Cloud services are there to make sure you rent space and bandwidth from them. That is what they do.
If you are on a cloud based system and your internet access fails you are out of business. If your cloud provider has a hiccup, the server is down for maintenance or any other reason, you are out of business. If your cloud provider goes out of business, you are out of business.
A cloud service is renting instead of owning. Usage fees are forever until you are done using it. This can be an expensive proposition even over a very short period of time. Up front costs are sometimes reduced, but can also rapidly escalate. As a conservative example, given a modest $200 per month fee (not including tax or support plan) will be $2400.00 per year. You have little or no recourse if the service decides to change their pricing structure or it becomes prohibitively more expensive at a higher usage tier. If you subscribe via a contract you may have some leverage, but the practical option will likely be to find a different service. This requires remote data migration from one computer system to another. Migrating a database to a different service is non-trivial and will lead to down time for your business. That is, if the original service cooperates with the transition. Otherwise, it may simply prove to be impossible and you will have to start all over again. Until your data is migrated to another computer system, the data is unavailable and you are out of business.
If you desire to change providers, your original cloud service may deny you access to your own data. There are documented cases of this occurring. Since the data is not on anything you own, the service provider essentially owns the data. The service provider can do whatever they like with what was your proprietary, confidential information. Even backup restoration can require wating for the service provider to have a technician made available to perform the restoration. Until your data is restored, you will be out of business.
If your cloud provider decides they aren't making enough money from rents, they can start pushing advertising or other material to your connected computers and computing devices. Amazon markets a number of different e-reader devices that push advertising. They do that to moderate their costs. Don't say it won't happen, it already does.
Like any computer connection method, a cloud computer will offer data at the rate it can deliver. It will always be slower than a local connection such as ethernet. The generally accepted performance penalty for internet access to and from a cloud is that the cloud connection will be at least 100% slower than a local connection.
The cloud does not provide programming. It does not provide hardware. It requires program software to process the data received from the cloud computer. Your hardware and software defines what you can do with that data. Make sure the features of the hardware and software you have are sufficient to operate your business as you see fit. A device such as a phone will be limited in what it can do. You won't be building forms and reports with any degree of complexity. The software is naturally limited to the constraints of your device. Most cloud service software available for purchase is stripped down to a small list of features.
Many cloud connected client software packages rely on web page user interfaces. Web pages use HTML. HTML is an interpreted code format. Interpreted code is many times slower than applications written using modern compiled languages. Bear in mind too, that web browsers are third party software. Whatever changes are made to the web browser will impact a web (cloud) based program. Sometimes to the extent that features you relied on cease to function. Your business is at the whim of capricious change where you have no recourse.
Any viable company desires protection for their data. With a cloud solution, it is impossible to guarantee that your data is secure. Most competent security professionals will tell you that. Feel free to browse the web for lectures and experiences of people who have trusted cloud storage only to receive a rude awakening. You will find articles regarding leaked personal photos of celebrities, stolen credit card information and identity theft. Even managers and developers of cloud services concede that if your data is on the web, it has already been compromised. They admit that their primary task is to minimize further disruption and destruction of the data.
With our business management program installed on your Windows based computer your business will always have reliable service anytime, anywhere. Real time communication with your office is simple from any remote computer using our program over an internet connection. Further, internet connections can be secured by using a virtual private network which we can easily set up for you. This safeguards your material from most unauthorized access. You have the same or better connectivity as a cloud based service but you own it, control it and the data remains your own. The vast majority of businesses do not require thousands invested towards a dedicated server as some might have led you to believe. In conclusion, the monolithic cloud concept contradicts the inherently stable, quick and robust paradigm of our distributed processing design and the internet itself.
Not if you are looking for "Tracks Eraser". Try acesoft.net.
Not if you are looking for "cell phone accessories". Try acetore.com.
If you are looking for anything else, probably.
We collect information from you when you register on our site or fill out a form.
By using our site, you consent to our website privacy policy.