Thoughts On Application Service Providing? 8
"In the biz.comp.accounting newsgroup a few days ago, I noticed someone talking about a client wanting to revert to an earlier version of an accounting software (Quickbooks Pro I think, but not 100% sure) because a certain module (payroll?) was only accessible by using the Quickbooks Web site. In other words, your payroll data was stored at the Quickbooks site. I guess a lot of people don't like the thought of this. I also understand that you could have the data local and the software remote, if the software was designed with that in mind.
My point is, I have never understood the complete craze with which software companies and a lot of media seem to think that the software services will be the only way to get software in the future. I for one want my software and my data on my desktop machine or my own server. I might use a Web service for certain things (like when I am traveling, etc...). I think that for the most part it is just a way that the software companies think they can make more money and avoid piracy. The 'ultimate' copy protection.
I also think that it may be something that many computer users do not want. If this is true, it could be a chance for open source software to make some inroads in places that before they have been locked out of. A very large percentage of people use Office right now, but would it be easier to get them to think of switching if they suddenly had to pay for it monthly?"
I see such ideas like this as yet another step in the further removal of the user from control of her own system. Of course, you do know that you don't really own your existing applications anyway.
Remember Pointcast? (Push Technology) (Score:1)
The advantage to the consumer is of course that he/she doesn't have to worry about upgrading or maintainance of the device. I am not the personal computer is going to be the best platform for ASP services, but think of specialized appliances such as settop boxes. The main advantage on the provider side in my opinion is the control you can have over the services you offer; lock them down as much as possible, upgrade when needed etc.
Mmmm, centrally administered OpenBSD based settop boxes. That would of course ruin the fun of cracking your ex-girlfriend's settop and displaying appropriate content.
But I digress
bBob
Didn't we talk about this yesterday? (Score:2)
IMHO, the current Internet and the current behavior of normal corporate/personal computer systems is such that ASPs are bound to be plagued with security, privacy, and general ease-of-use issues. I believe that ASPs are often a poor idea because they put everyone under UCITA terms: if a developer doesn't like you, they can remove your ability to work (at least with their tool, and if all your files are in encrypted proprietary formats, you're screwed).
That said, sure, there might be a place for them; as another poster said, it might be nice to be able to rent a package just for an afternoon or a week. OTOH, I would be very unhappy to have my entire system be composed of rented applications. I believe that we'll see the same phenomenon as with housing: the renters will be the ones who only need a short-term resource or can't afford to actually buy.
ASPs are a form of outsourcing (Score:2)
Sure, as a hacker/nerd/geek you want control to play/fiddle/customise, but for people who the technology isn't an end in itself, all of that flexibility is a burden.
You get frustrated about the rapid advances and falling prices of technology - well in an ASP world you can forget about watching your $50K server turn into equivalent of next years $3K desktop.
ASPs also fit nicely into a netpliance world - they are the servers that give your netpliance life.
ASPs will be popular for similar reasons that web hosting is popular - its simpler and can be cheaper due to the economies of scale. Are you sitting there knowing that a proper tape backup system for your data will cost an arm and a leg? What if your data was stored remotely and backed up by a robotic backup system that looked after you and hundreds of others? For a small cost each day your data is securely backed up.
Using an ASP can potentially be more secure than any security you can put in place yourself. Do you have a firewall? I mean a real firewall, not a packet filter ala ipchains and ipfwadm. How many small businesses do you know with poor data security that would benefit from letting specialists look after things? Do you have DRP for your data? Do you have 99% uptime (application availability)?
Also, when looking at hype such as ASPs remember the real target market is the business world. There is far more money in making products for other businesses than for end users - where is there more money B2B or B2C? So while Sun will tell you that they are making an ASP version of StarOffice, they aren't really aiming at you sitting at home, they are thinking about that company around the corner with 100 people and overworked IT staff.
There will be a lot of lousy ASPs, companies looking to make a fast buck. These companies will die out, but the companies that addresses people's concerns - privacy, security and also have products people want will be the ones that stay around. Security will be a big selling point for any ASP that holds data.
You may already use some ASPs and not think of them as such. sourceforge, collab.net, eproject, hotmail, etc are all ASPs.
Re:Didn't we talk about this yesterday? (Score:1)
That said, sure, there might be a place for them; as another poster said, it might be nice to be able to rent a package just for an afternoon or a week. OTOH, I would be very unhappy to have my entire system be composed of rented applications. I believe that we'll see the same phenomenon as with housing: the renters will be the ones who only need a short-term resource or can't afford to actually buy.
Agreed. It's all about economics: cost, risk and various tradeoffs. As with transport: you have tradeoffs between bicycles, cars, busses, trains, planes, lear-jets and so on -- according to cost, time, risk and other factors. Intelligent people make appropriate tradeoffs, but there may end up being a disadvantaged class - technology is not neutral.
Exactly your concerns about renting all of your applications is what will prevent an absolute version of ASP occurring - your concern may come down to risk and privacy. Some people don't want to own their car, so they lease. Other people are happy to own their car, and outsource maintenance. Others do their own maintenance. I could make endless analogies, according to all manner of diversity.
The point is that computing/communications technology is evolving to become a broader and deeper part of society, and respond to the complexity and variety of diverse niches and needs. C'est la vie!
ASP's are a part of the evolving landscape (Score:2)
I see Application Service Providers as a step in the right direction, but it is going to be hype driven. They are a tactical part of a larger strategic evolution towards distributed computing.
Future software is destined to be distributed and collaborative. It is likely that the software will exist splattered across local and remote devices. For instance, the core of my hypermedia editing package may be installed on my pc, but I may buy or rent advanced features across the net. As another example: I may take multiple angle pictures of my car, and want to turn it into a 3d representation, so I load the pictures into Photoshop, then browse an ASP that offers a '2d->3d' service, and after browsing a reduced sample of the output, decide to purchase the result. It takes only 10 seconds for the ASP to do the rendering, and I pay them a few dollars - I could never do the rendering on my local PC, because I just don't have the memory or computing power. My use of the ASP is virtually seamless, it doesn't even seem as though I'm running my task on a remote system.
The problem as I see it - common across all of technology - is that ASP has been jumped up as a 'buzzword' and a hype. Suddenly vendors must be on the boat, and will implement ASP solutions - sometimes oblivious to the long term trend. At the same time, users may buy into the hype as well, going for ASP when it may not be the best option. A judicious analysis of cost/benefits is the right way to determine whether ASP is useful.
If I can suggest an analogy: B2B market places have been around for years, and can be seen as an eventual element in the roadmap towards post industrial society. It just so happens that enabling factors come to play at the right time, and the technology grows to maturity. Unfortunately, the ideal B2B framework may not be used, so some form of shakeout and correction will occur. You could say that this has already ocurred: those bungled overloaded X.400 EDI systems are giving way to new XML type framework. It's almost analogous to the way that a ubiquitous communications protocol framework was eventually on the roadmap, it just happened to end up being TCP/IP rather than anything else (the nearest is maybe GOSIP).
In any case: the enabling factors are in place for computing to make the next step, towards becoming further distributed and collaborative at an acceptable economic cost. So ASP's will start to take off, and then then the computing blur will continue to set in. There are other elements of the computing blur starting to happen across the landscape.
security (Score:1)
Is it goint to be encrypted to atleast 1024 bits
at all times? if not forget it. The 128 bit encryption is ok for small transactions
but for large amounts of data forget it.
Remember the bigger the sample the weaker the protection at any given level. Can they provide a higher level of reliability than i can?
My novel sco and linux boxes have multi year uptimes in allot of cases even nt can be reliable as long as its rebooted in the off hours once in a while.
Change is good. (Score:1)
First of all, don't dismiss Application Service Providers right away with all the usual tales of privacy destruction, but please, if only for once, think about the advantages. Besides, nobody says you ever have to use ASPs, so nothing's going to happen without you agreeing to it anyway.
I do lots of coding at home, so I have a compiler and other development tools permanently installed on my local harddrive. I have either paid for them or they are free. Now, it does happen that for some reason I need a cool splashscreen or a cool logo for the website or whatever. I can do two things now: get a free/shareware/illegal version of software to assist me in the creation or I can buy one.
I don't want to spend half a day looking and trying to end up with an inadequate tool anyway and I don't want to buy a large commercial and well-known tool just for the occasional logo.
So what if I could use Photoshop with 2000 installed filters and all the cool add-ons for a single afternoon for a couple of bucks?
Conclusion: it's just another option, which is always good. I could still download and install the Gimp ofcourse, but this way, I can use Photoshop if I prefer it without having to shell out for the entire app. It depends on your principles if you actually want to do such a thing ofcourse... But hey, long live free choice.
NOS and Directory Services are making the way. (Score:1)
As for ASPing, it will be a no brainer in about two years for companies to host apps for others and share licencing when not in use.
Toddler