[SML] Inventory Software?

[Michael Sauder]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 10:09 PM Jon Ares via Stagecraft <
stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 5:14 PM jdunfee12--- via Stagecraft
> <stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> >
> >As I alluded to above, I hate anything with a subscription, or one that
> demands you use their own cloud.  It means that if the company discontinues
> the product, or goes out of business, your work is gone.  But, just search
> "Inventory App" an you will get plenty of hits.
>
> "Cloud" is just modern speak for gathering valuable data about you and
> your stuff (in this case, your inventory) that has value to 3rd
> parties. Wayfair/Amazon/Walmart would LOVE to know what kind of
> furniture and possessions you have, and will pay for that data.


I would disagree. "Cloud" simply indicates it's hosted on offsite servers,
typically ones you don't own or manage (but you can own a private cloud).
It does not automatically imply that the cloud provider has access to your
data. It would be HIGHLY unusual for a remotely hosted inventory database
to be accessed by the cloud provider and the data or even metadata sold to
a 3rd party.

Like anything, cloud has tradeoffs. Yes, you risk the company going out of
business or discontinuing the service. Good companies will provide ways for
you to export the data. However, going with a cloud service means you:
- Don't have to maintain the server hardware
- Don't have to maintain the software and get constant, "free" updates.
- Don't have to maintain backups (there are additional pros/cons to this)
- Can access from anywhere you have an internet connection, from any
computer.

If you go with a private self managed solution, you:
- Have to maintain the hardware
- Have to maintain software installations, and do not get free updates
- Have to do your own backups
- Can typically only be accessed from select computers with select network
connectivity

There's more to be said, but really that's going off on a tangent. I was
simply going to re-iterate the suggestion for Filemaker Pro, which has both
local and cloud-based solutions, and also suggest Airtable -
http://www.airtable.com. I don't have any real hands-on experience with
them but they keep popping up on my radar as a possible solution for
various projects. Here's one template they have for inventory:
https://airtable.com/templates/local-business/expDrHGuyjSQlrKTq/inventory-tracking


--
Michael Sauder
Show Control Programming and Design
Email: michael.sauder at gmail.com
Web: www.shownet.io
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