Assignment 5: Web Office Tools

Is this the future of all software products? What do you think? 

This may be the future of some software products, but probably not all. The more widely used software that is used to create collaborative information products may end up this way. Other software may not be profitable to switch to this model of distribution and use. 

Some software produces personal information, information created by one person for the use of that one person. Privacy would be a concern in these cases, and switching to a Web-based software would be undesirable. For instance, why would I want to have my Quicken electronic checkbook available on the Web? I do not need access to that wherever I go, and if I did, I could download the information and run Quicken software on my PDA, a device that is under my direct control.

I was dismayed during my review of the course information to see little mention of safeguards for security and privacy. Password protection may or may not be enough, and how are the companies safeguarding passwords? For some documents security and privacy will not be a concern, but every organization produces documents and files that are unsuitable for public review. Although we collaborate at my university to complete performance evaluations, I would be uncomfortable having our evaluations hosted somewhere on the Web by a company that may or may not be concerned about our confidentiality rules.  

Companies routinely are bought, are sold, merge, go bankrupt, etc. in today's business world. When this occurs, files saved by a Web-based service may or may not be preserved. One of the authors in this week's readings mentioned backing up files posted on the Web. If this is a necessity, then document authors still have problems with document management and control that Web hosting of files is supposed to alleviate.

I can understand the positive aspects of collaborating and sharing information via the Web office tools, but I have less need for this right now. I prefer to have more control over what I share and how I share it. Our campus is implementing an ERP system at this time that I hope will allow for some of this collaborative functionality and also safeguard internal documents and files. Our current content management system, Moodle, already allows opportunities for sharing and collaboration by faculty and their students.

Stay tuned for further developments.

Marcia