Individuals and businesses are embracing cloud applications and desktop software is dying a slow death. But the recent failure of Amazon web services have shown that offline access it still important, especially for large companies and enterprises. But cloud applications still has a lot to offer and they are cheap comparing to many desktop software.
So cloud vendors have come up with some unique ways to provide offline access to their users.
Using HTML5 Offline Access
The offline access available through HTML5 is one of the most popular method cloud vendors uses to give offline access. The application cache available in HTML5 helps not only to give offline access but also to speed up the application and reduce the load on the servers. However the mechanism is trick and you need knowledgeable programmers to successfully implement this. Another drawback is not all browsers support HTML5. Old version of Internet explorer ( Before IE 10 ) still holds major market share when it comes to browsers and they don’t support HTML5. So if you are an established application, moving to HTML5 might cause you to loose your customers.
On-Site Implementation
Another options provided by cloud vendors and especially appealing to large enterprises working with sensitive date. On site implementation basically means deploying the software in customers servers instead of hosting them in vendors servers. This provide additional security for the company but more importantly removes the reliance on the Internet. As long as the company networks are up and running users can access and use the service. This is appealing to vendors as well because it reduces the burden on their own servers and also because they can sell it for a large one time amount.
Providing Desktop Software
Although desktop software cannot be categorized as a cloud solution, it becomes critical when you don’t have Internet access. What some cloud based vendors have done is provide users with desktop software that automatically syncs with their online accounts. You need Internet access for the syncing to happen but the advantage is once it’s synced you have access to your diagrams from anywhere in the world. Additionally they can be sold as an stand alone app for super sensitive users who don’t like to access any network to get that data.
Listed above are some creative ways cloud based applications are providing offline access to their users. Know another creative way? Please share it in the comments section.
This sound too good to be true,but we will see can cloud technology make our future easier.
@Sanel, It’s the future and once HTML5 reach it’s full potential it will only get better.
@Nish,I hope that HTML5 will reach its full potential,but we will see.
Its something really good for users to use cloud computing if we got offline access covered by HTML 5 and if an additional framework is introduced between html 5 and browser then the problem of not supported by old IE versions is also solved..