Application publishing for SMBs

I have a number of people inquire why application publishing is so important to SMBs. The question almost always comes up when I am speaking with resellers, consultants or end customers about the differences between Konect and terminal services. As I noted in my last posting, application publishing is one of the key features that differentiates Konect from terminal services. To me, it seems like a rhetorical question but it always gives me cause to reflect on what I have always thought it is.

Have you been involved with a conversation or overheard one where someone is saying "what would happen to our company if the plane goes down." Invariably this is a conversation referring to a number of key people together in a situation where if something bad was to happen it would seriously hurt their company. Having worked in large and small companies, I have always applied this kind of thinking to our collective dependence on technology for our critical information.

Can you imagine 2 days at work without email in today's world? Wow ... that would be like 2 days at work without power. Business would grind to a halt and panic might / will set in!

How does that relate to application publishing? In my head its pretty simple. Because small companies are defined by the fact that they are ... well ... small, generally they have few employees and few technology resources. This scarcity makes the "few" that more valuable and indispensable to the business overall.

If all of a small businesses customer information and accounting records are stored in Simply Accounting, then suddenly that application becomes absolutely invaluable and even critical to the company.

Imagine a scenario where you run a small company and you need to give some of your employees access to resources on your server. In a terminal services world, if they get access to the server they pretty much get access to everything on that server. What if someone accidently deletes the wrong Simply Accounting file?

In a Konect world with application publishing, when an employee gets access to the server they only get access to those resources that you "publish" to them. The risk of accidental deletion of critical files is eliminated.

Sounds pretty valuable!