Hindsight I T Solutions™ PC vs SERVER
Hindsight Main Page First Sight Second Site Domain Only Portfolio Other Services Bespoke Software Contact Third Party Software Actinic Catalog Actinic Business Actinic Portal MYOB Accounting Accounting Plus	Many businesses are aware of the great potential of the Net for making sales. As the business benefits are becoming clear and suitable technology available, the market is expanding rapidly. One of the major choices to be made when creating an ecommerce solution to sell into the market is between a centralised "server based" solution or, like Actinic Catalog, a boxed PC based solution which works offline. Ever since the PC was first introduced by IBM in the early 80's, technical departments have worked hard to re-establish control over the proliferation of computer software. The rise of the Internet has brought with it a resurgence of effort to centralise applications albeit using servers rather than mainframe computers. However, highly centralised models have always struggled in the market-place as people like to both feel in control of their own destiny and have as much flexibility as possible. For instance, by keeping their system and data on their desktop, SMEs will feel more comfortable and this builds confidence. In fact, it is difficult to think of a successful mass market product which is server based. Web space is possibly an example, but ironically many web sites are maintained by FrontPage, a PC based product which, with FrontPage extensions, works very similarly to Catalog. It is a stark truth that no-one designs sites online. The argument for server-side solutions is solely based on control and ease of deployment of the technology. This paper examines arguments relevant to the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and those wishing to market to them. Requirements of the SME Market The key requirements of all offerings to the SME market are ease-of-use, low total cost and providing something which is understandable to them. In ecommerce a further issue is confidence: ecommerce is new and they do not have time to learn new concepts. Ease of Use It is far easier to use a windows based application with instantaneous response than to endure many seconds delay between each operation when working with a server. Online maintenance of a catalogue and processing (and searching for) orders online is both slower and less reliable than local processing. These are powerful arguments for the busy and resource stretched SME. The first time a small business manager spends several hours changing all of their prices due to the inherent network delays of a server based solution will be the last. For SMEs operating over ISDN and dialup, the offline model is by far the most appealing. Imagine satisfying incoming customer enquiries by first dialling out and then searching at a remote database, rather than simply switching between local applications. Cost Being online whilst having to perform site maintenance and order processing leads to a higher cost due to local call charges (outside North America) plus the major time cost of waiting whilst online. The best case of 64k of Internet bandwidth via ISDN must be compared with megabits of bandwidth to the local hard drive on the PC. Confidence: Inclination Towards Boxed Products SMEs have been educated in the last few years that "proper" software comes in a box and installs on their desktop. Presenting ecommerce within a familiar conceptual framework is the best way to make sales. Although few will take advantage of the fact, knowing that it is possible to switch server suppliers is highly comforting. Few organisations feel comfortable with their customer data and order history being stored on a remote server under another companies control, however large and respectable that company might be. By providing electronic commerce "in a box", there is something tangible to sell. A box provides an increased opportunity to sell service and opens up additional channels such as off-the-page catalogue suppliers. Technical Issues There are some technical reasons for a centralised approach to electronic commerce - everything is under central control, upgrades are easier to perform and there are no desktop support issues. However, these arguments apply equally to the mainframe versus PC debate and if decisive would lead to businesses running their accounts packages on a bureau service, rather than locally. Ubiquitous networks have been available for some years within large corporates and this is a microcosm of the ubiquity of the Internet. In spite of the advantages of centralised control and widespread network availability, the last 10 years have seen a proliferation in client / server solutions and a corresponding reduction in the significance of the server, due to reasons such as response times that have already been discussed. Weak Security If no application is installed on the desktop, SSL is the only method of security available. In these circumstances, the only security that can be used for protecting credit card information at the server is symmetric i.e. the means to decrypt is also present at the site, as all encrypted data must be decrypted before being sent to the vendor. This means that if the web site is compromised either externally or by ISP/ Web server staff, all credit cards will be freely available to the hacker. This represents a fundamentally higher risk for the provider of the ecommerce service than Actinic Catalog which uses end to end asymmetric encryption. Here, access to the server gives no benefit to the hacker in decrypting credit card information. Third Parties and Systems Integration The ability to integrate with other desktop software such as accounting packages is crucial. Although it is possible to integrate a downloaded file to other desktop systems, this is hard and expensive to achieve until applications arrive which manage the download. Actinic Catalog provides just this management, and is available today. A desktop product provides many more opportunities for third parties such as web designers, value added resellers and systems integrators. Actinic's experience has been that every single live site has had additional web design input. A product which the third party can install on the vendor's desktop is a natural for integration, design, commissioning and training. Since the majority of ecommerce sites will be implemented through this route, the needs of VARs are paramount. Cutting them out of the loop simply reduces the market size. Many Server Solutions With such a clear cut set of reasons for preferring desktop and offline models over server based solutions, the question has to be asked as to why there has been such a recent proliferation of server based products. The reason, in Actinic's view, is simple. It is several orders of magnitude easier to build a server based solution than an offline, desktop based one. A desktop solution must address the issues of co-existing with other products on the desktop, may have to work through a proxy server and so on. Actinic is unusual in both having the skills to solve these problems and having already spent two years working on them. Market Corroboration As corroborating evidence of the strength of the offline model, there is a choice between online and offline working for email. In the UK virtually nobody with a dial up connection uses an online reader. The reasons for not wanting email online are the same as those for not wanting to maintain catalogues or process orders online. Of the many bulletin boards in existence 10 years ago only one, CIX, has gone from strength to strength. The secret? They were the only bulletin board with a good offline reader. CONCLUSION The reason why there is such a proliferation of server based solutions is not that the market has demanded them but that they are cheap to develop and deploy. Actinic Catalog is designed to take advantage of the PC inclination of the market place, but also has server elements to tap into the advantages of server-side technologies such as low maintenance costs. This is a pragmatic business-driven approach and we believe that this form of ecommerce will emerge as the clear winner.
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