A couple of weeks ago, I was at OSCON listening to everyone blather on about the wonders of Web 2.0 and software as a service and how “licensing doesn’t matter” because everything is going to be running “in the cloud” on the big player’s networks, like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and so forth.
Yeah. When I can count on having zero downtime with a service like Gmail for six or seven months, then I’ll consider using Web services to replace my desktop apps. I know Gmail, for example, is in “beta” (does “beta” really mean anything anymore? That’s a topic for another post…) but I’ve noticed service interruptions on Gmail a number of times in the past few weeks. Usually, less than 20 minutes, but that 20 minutes might be crucial for times when email really is “mission critical.” If I’m on a deadline, not being able to get to an email with an interview can be deadly.
Yesterday, Amazon was down for a short period — if the big players fall down from time to time, imagine online service providers that don’t have the same level of resources.
I’m okay with using del.icio.us, Gmail, Flickr, and others because it’s not vitally important that I be able to reach my Webmail or photos every second of every day — when they’re down, I can make do with my locally stored email and photos if necessary. It’s going to be a long, long time before I feel like I can trust anything important to online services, though.
