G,
There are many of us who will leave the moment any program, including AC goes to a "Zero Footprint" as you so put it. Why don't you call it what it really is, a program that we have created our data in, our intellectual property in, and yet we can never own it, hold it in our hands, it is a permenant taxi-meter for the software developer to hold the user hostage because simply to get to their data they must "pay" a monthly, yearly, quarterly fee just to access some server that has the program their data was created in....
We here on this board have hashed this one out and this dog can't hunt. Keep going brother and dig yourself a deeper hole as you turn off everybody reading here. This is our intellectual property and we care to own an actually working copy of the program that is will be created in so we can always access our data. I won't even bother to re-type all the points I and other good users like our dear friend Roy have already spoken of in these pages, you can do a search and find them. But believe me when I tell you either we own the program or we walk.... Period, short the end.
We here call these programs ASP model prgrams as they are hosted on someone else's server. These vendors brag about a 97% retention rate of customers and on the surface it sounds great until you stop and think of why they are able to retain so many more customers than other vendors..... WHY, really use that supposedly big brain of yours and think why... Because it is a proprietarty written program that the data only really works correctly in it's original native program. So what are all these suckers going to do to be able to access their charts, their intellectual property, their data??? That's right continue to pay the "ransome" to the ASP vendor just so they can open up a document they already paid to create in this program a year ago. Forever stuck on the vendor's taximeter.
In the reverse I buy a copy of MS office and all the spreadsheets and word docs I create in it are mine and as long as I have a decent machine with a proper version OS on it, I can access and continue to create more data and more of "MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY" in those programs until the end of time. That is my right as they legal owner of the program that I purchased and nobody can every take that away from me or make me stop.
Yes, people who fall for this ASP "three card monty" (now you see 'em, now you don't) vendors are suckers and if you want us here to be your next group of suckers, you better watch out, because I'm really starting to get PO'ed here, hands off the one last decent and friendly for the small and solo practice program left our there. We don't shut off people's accounts here for free speech even if we don't agree with however crazy or offensive their speech may be, but believe me when I tell you, we here at this board are of a somewhat different mindset and we are quite proud of that. "Hands off my AC" OK? If you don't care to actually understand the users and the community then, the nitch or anything else about it, then you maybe technically smart as all hell, but you are very ignorant in terms of marketing and sales, business and basic good old human interactions and Psych.
And by the way, sure I love my new multi-point fuel injected, 5.2 magnun Jeep Grand Cherokee, but there are things I can do with and more importantly for, repair and take care of myself, on my old analog, carburated, electronic ignition Dodge Dart that has the older brother of the same exact motor, the 318 cid, that I just can't for my newer Jeep. I need new tools and new tech just to be able to read a trouble code or read the data coming off the various sensors, just to be able to begin figuring out why she is throwing a code at me. Many times the simplicity factor way out weighs the tech improvment factors. As a Sunday driver, I'll take my beautiful old Dodge Dart any day. And when I was truely poor and had to maintain my car by my own brain or throw it out, that is what I would always buy as a daily driver, because I could fix and care for whatever it threw back at me. Even today I have this issue once in awhile with my newer Jeeps. Sure their MFI is reliable, smooth, and gets slightly better MPG's while returning a little better output in HP and torque, but I can fix my Dart myself and the tech is simple and any reasonable smart person can take care of it, themselves. And that is what we have with AC. If you start messing with that, you will have a rebellion on your hands, so back off, OK???
I suggest that you go do some searches and some informative reading here for a while, then and only then, start chimming in about suggesting such offensive ideas like ASP models with totally re-designed architecture. You may be big on tech smarts but..... You still have a whole heck of a lot left to learn my friend..... Catch ya on the other side....
