Hello again DONATION advisors. We are thinking seriously about renaming two of the versions of DONATION (and ACCOUNTS), and we invite your comments.
First, we are clear that we should rename the Standalone version to “Standard”. That version really doesn’t necessarily stand alone, because several people can have it installed on their computers and share one or more databases, usually through that version’s Cloud Storage Service. So it seems more appropriate to just call it Standard, since it is the version that the majority of our users use.
We also want to rename the Web Network Version, because too many potential users misunderstand and think it is a true web application, run through a web browser. It is not – it is installed Windows software. We originally called it “Web Network” because the program’s database is on our server, and thus accessed over the Internet.
Unfortunately we are really not clear what the best choice is for renaming that version. We don’t want any name that includes words like “web”, “Internet” or “cloud” or obvious synonyms for them, because all of them could lead to the same confusion, of users thinking it’s a true web application.
Options we are considering include:
- Remote Database Version: this seems fairly good, but still implies something similar to what our Local Network Client version does (which accesses a database that is somewhat remote – namely on another computer on the same local network).
- Hosted Database Version: this is quite accurate, but we are afraid many of our users who are not very technical will not be familiar with the concept of software being “hosted”. In addition, “hosted software” often means that the entire program runs on a server, not just having the database on the server.
- Server Database Version: again quite accurate, but could be confused with our Local Network Server Version, especially because they both include the word “Server”.
Please let us know if you have preferences between those options, or other suggestions! Thank you.