Being an evangelist for “Office 2.0”, being an Office 2.0 Worker and also…

I could have paid my 5 CHF for 30 minutes at an internet cafe, and that would have been fast enough. But my father is still on dial-up. Ouch, and I so wanted him to appreciate Google maps!

I guess my point is that the brave new world of Web 2.0 is great, but it should try to cater to everyone. Many Web applications demand quite a bit of bandwidth. I guess the main users are corporations, not private citizens.

I agree with you. Some users will need this delegated storage model.

Let’s work on it!

On the one hand, having worked on a major engineering project (~1500 users), the concept of centralized storage was wonderful — implementing it was hard, as we had to struggle with entrenched prejudices, habits, and sheer “bloody mindedness” on the part of the users. Had we succeeded then, the “access & edit anywhere” paradigm with well indexed files would have created great productivity gains. As it was, the local storage mentality was — and probably still is — a major pain; upgrading clients and keeping versions in step across multiple, geographically distributed sites was a nightmare. Again, my plea for standardized file formats, with no polluting “extensions” would have alleviated some issues. Bet you can’t guess whose Office product we were using…

On the other hand, the thing that prevents me as an individual from relying on on-line storage — even with Gmail, I save and copy important emails — is the lack of trust in the supplier. Can they guarantee privacy? Can they protect against fishing trips from governemts or big business? Can they assure me protection against tampering? Most of all, can they guarantee ME acess to MY data? What if they go bust? What if they have a change of management policy? Or change billing terms? Will they inhibit me from accessing my data if I use “unapproved” tools? The list goes on…

As I’ve indicated before, it’s a balancing act.

I wouldn’t worry about keeping the records/scores/league tables for a sports/games club in such a scenario, particularly where the members were not IT gurus. But I would seriously worry about my own financial data, or any business data. However, I would use the Office 2.0 paradigm with storage under my control.

I agree with you, the long-term solution will be somewhere in the middle. But in the meantime, Office 2.0 will be sold with a simpler marketing pitch, where all the data is online, held by trusted third-parties. It’s going to follow the path that the PC took when it was marketed as an alternative to mainframe systems. Initially, it was at the opposite of the spectrum, then both met in the middle with the emergence of networks.

What I would like to say, however, is that I don’t see my misgivings as a total show stopper. For most businesses an Office “one and a bit” approach, with the data held on an enterprise server or Intranet is an excellent way forward. It gives all the benefits of Office 2.0 — I won’t preach to the converted, with the control over one’s own data, which I believe businesses really need.

Ultimately, the choice is more about how you manage the manager(s) of your data (“meta control”) — a political/process issue rather than technology. There’s a range of options, from totally controlled Intranet, operating as a “virtual ISP”, outsourcing to a company with very carefully worded contracts and SLA, or blind trust. To me, with an engineering rather than sales background, this is an advantage, as it allows the selection of the best configuration for the job.

I reiterate that it is largely a question of the value you put on the data, the trust you have in the storage partner, and the overall convenience and simplified user experience — and I have had plenty of experiences dealing with “simple” users.

There’s no simple “one size fits all” answer — and this is the real problem, so it’s not easy to create the advertising strap-line or soundbite which salesmen like so much — and presumably the public does so as well, otherwise they wouldn’t be effective.

This book I am working on is all about moving away from installed applications and the dependency on your own local hard drive. It’s all about the Office 2.0 movement taking place around us right now.

This is, in my opinion, the weak point in an otherwise compelling argument. Granted, the approach offloads responsibility for backups, archiving, managing capacity, etc. to someone else — an attractive proposition for some folks.

But…

You lose control over your own data. Can you guarantee that it is being held securely? Are you sure that confidentiality and integrity are well protected? And can you ensure that your business data is not accessible to the “bad guys” to view and/or corrupt?

Finally you are handing over your most precious asset — your business information — to somebody else to look after. What if they change the terms of the contract? How will you survive if key information is held hostage? Can you guarantee that all backups/archives will be wiped if you move elsewhere? Can you even have faith that you can move the data? Is it stored in some proprietary “lock in” format?

I guess your level of paranoia/cynicism, and the value of the data concerned, will drive the decision. The reputation, past behaviour, and company ethics will also have an influence. Google, with it’s “Do no evil” approach, would probably be safer than, say, Microsoft with their past record. I can see that it is attractive for some uses, but I wouldn’t trust my information to online service suppliers.

How to address these issues?

A combination of truly open standards-based file formats, with an express prohibition on extensions that pollute the standards, and a common [e.g. ISO committee] holder of all related patents would go a long way to ensure portability and lock-in prevention.

An easy to use, well defined, and trusted encryption mechanism based on open standards would help address the confidentiality, integrity, and authentication issues. Again this needs to be analyzed in the open, by a well informed and trusted community, in order to avoid “snake oil” peddlers and fears of snooping.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the Office 2.0 approach very much — I just have misgivings about placing my trust in parties over whom I have little/no influence or control.