on Oct 6th, 2006
The Reliability Problem and Web Based Apps
I recently began to use Zoho Writer, a web based word processor. The advantages of using a web based word processor rather than a local one (eg. MS Word) is that I can work on my documents from anywhere. When I need to work on a document at a location other than my home computer, I don’t need to worry about putting it on portable storage. As long as the Internet is available, then my documents will be available.
The problem is that Internet connections are not always dependable. I ran into this problem a few days ago when I powered up my computer to find that my connection was dead. That crippled my ability to get any work done. There are two major concerns when it comes to documents - reliable storage and reliable access. I don’t want to lose documents due to hard drive failure and I want to be able to access my documents when I want to.
When it comes to storage reliability, I would trust a large company’s servers over my personal computer. A company who wants to maintain their reputation will make sure that their customers’ data is safe and backed up regularly. The weakness with remote storage is reliable access. My Internet connection is probably the least reliable service in my house. It’s not horribly unreliable, but I can guarantee that my Internet connection will go down before I experience an electricity outage. I am quite confident that when I wake up tomorrow, I will be able to access my documents on my home computer. Even if the electricity goes out, I know that the electric company is working on it and that my electricity will be restored shortly. I can’t remember the last time I couldn’t access documents on my computer when I wanted to. A week didn’t go by since I started using Zoho Writer when my Internet connection went down and I couldn’t access my documents.
Web apps that use remote storage have great advantages, but until Internet service is as reliable as telephone or electrical service, I don’t think the public will abandon desktop apps. In order to compensate for the unreliability of the Internet, web apps should store data both remotely and locally and synchronize the data transparently.