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4.7 Facilities
62. Application Software
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4.7.62. Application Software:
For security reasons, no application software should be installed on any computer.   But for practical reasons, some software may have to be installed on a short term basis.   The software era is coming to an end, it is not secure to download and install any application software.   The vast majority of application software is full of bugs, full of vulnerabilities and is a security threat to your data.   70% of the code in the very popular Angry Birds game is devoted to stealing your data as you play the game.

Google Docs:
The future of computing is in the cloud using tools like Google Docs to replace Microsoft Office.   Google docs has still not achived its true potential of being 100% in the cloud, but it shows the way.   A stated downside is that an Internet connection is required, just like an electric supply may ben required.

Software:
A typical computer will have the following (free of charge) software installed:-
1. Sophos anit-virus.
2. Libra office word and calc.
3. Piriform CCleaner disk cleanup.
4. BillP WinPatrol download management.
5. Google Chrome browser.

Anti Virus:
Windows-10 has its own built in Windows Defender and does not need an extra Anti-Virus tool installing.   Virus attacks have morphed into zero-day vulnerabilities in installed software - eliminate software and vulnerabilities do not exist.   A traditional virus has not been seen for more than ten years.
Many anti-virus products have morphed into what some people would call a virus - software you cannot delete.   Anti-virus tools are a way to earn revenue and that may mean creating viruses to keep anti-virus tools in demand.   The whole market has reached unacceptable levels of doing business.
Sophos offer a free of charge home anti-virus tool to promote their commercial security products.   This is small, fast and keeps out of the way - and its free of charge.

Browsers:
Google Chrome was far better than Internet Explorer, but Windows-10 includes Microsoft Edge that can be faster than Google Chrome.   Both Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge can co-exist and both can be used at the same time to browse the Internet.   No one browser is better or worst than the other, but what is true this year may not be true next year.
We also use Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari for testing and compatibility reasons.   One critical factor is that 99% of installed toolbars are malware and should never be installed.

Libra Office:
Libra Office is a plug compatible free of charge edition of Microsoft Office 2003 for XP.   It does not have the uncontrollable ribbon menu bar, it has nice simple drop down menu options.   It is compatible with 99% of Microsoft Office facilities.   The only issue we have discovered is that Libra cannot unlock a password protected XLSX or DOCX document created by MS Office 2013.   It will cost 75 pounds per year for Office-360 to get the password unlock facility from Microsoft.

CCleaner:
Windows-10 has its own disk cleaner and does not need an extra disk cleaner tool to be installed.   With massive hard disk sizes, it is questioned if disk cleaning serves any cost-effective purpose.
CCleaner is well respected and will offer suggestions when disk cleanup would be of benefit.   It includes a registry cleaner that is quite effective to be run once a month.

WinPatrol:
Windows-10 has its own download validation tools and does not need an extra tool to be installed.   However WinPatrol has proved itself over many years as adding a cost-effective extra layer of protection and security.
WinPatrol sounds and alarm and pops up al alter when any computer congiguration is about to be changed - you can accept or reject the change.   This extra manual check give time for people to reconsider if a download is truely needed or should be rejected - by default reject any change.

Excel to CRM:
1. The evolution from Excel to CRM is not easy as many thousands of hours of experience that has gone into Excel needs to be redirected to more effective ways of working.   As with any improvement, some will resist change and some will accept change, but history shows its just a matter of time.   Those that resist change suffer the largest costs and may suffer a loss of worth as their skills become obsolete.   Those that embrace change gain maximum productivity benefits with more opportunities to progress and grow.

Excel and CRM just tools:
1. Excel is a tool to help people become more effective at what they do.
2. CRM is a tool to help people become more productive at what they do.
3. A hammer is a poor screwdriver, like Excel is a poor CRM.
4. A specific CRM is named Eliza - Eliza has intelligent properties not seen in all CRM.

Excel to CRM Security:
1. After any evaluation, their is only one reason to evolve from Excel to Eliza and that reason is security.   Lax security measures were good enough, but are no longer good enough.   Excel was born in an era when security did not matter - today Excel is a security time bomb primed to go off.
2. Where a company imagines they can survive a data breach and that their customers will continue to give them private data, then Excel is good enough.   Where a company does not wish to have their customer private and sensitive data sold on the Internet, then they will evolve to a CRM.

Evaluation:
Not all evaluation factors apply to all people and all businesses, but experience highlights the following:-
1. When a business grows to the point where all business data will not fit in one Excel spreadsheet, then its time to upgrade to Eliza.   Eliza is seen as a set of integrated spreadsheets to reflect the complexity of the business.
2. Excel does not create an evidence trail of who did what and when.   Eliza automatically manages each and every field value change so any accidental change can be reversed.
3. Only one person can update Excel at any point in time - other people sit and wait and watch.   Eliza can be updated by any number of people at the same time.
4. Excel exists in one place and can only be updated and saved in that one place.   Eliza can be processed by approved people in any location at the same time.
5. An Excel spreadsheet will grow in size until it collapses in corruption from it shear size.   Eliza can grow without limit to any size and cannot be corrupted - data can never be lost.
6. Excel will loose data when a person forgets to save changes before they close their computer.   Eliza will save each and every field value as it is entered - it is not possible to loose data.
7. Excel lets corruption take place, a number field can be filled with letters and a telephone number can be filled with a text note.   Eliza is driven by business rules that specify the permitted value of each and every field - all data is always complete and correct.
8. Excel sheets evolve with data duplicated in many places so a simple address update may need to be done many times.   Eliza does not duplicate data, an address will be entered once, changed once and used by many different reports.
9. Excel spreadsheets pick up fonts, language and size properties from every computer so file sizes become excessive.   Eliza can work with any computer using any fonts and languages that a person chooses - this does not impact on Eliza data storage.
10. Excel does not create key performance indicators, statistical analysis, management information or business intelligence.   Eliza can automatically derive and consolidate data from other data without any cost or time overhead.
11. Excel does not have drag and drop capabilities.   Eliza drag and drop diary facilities maximise productivity.
12. Excel makes a poor diary.   Eliza has many advanced diary capabilities.
13. Excel comes with versions and release level incompatibility problems.   Eliza has no release numbers, no versions and will always be compatible with billions of standard HTML web pages.
14. Excel does not integrate sending email messages to other people.   Eliza complies with PECR subscription management for all messages.
15. Excel spreadsheets carry malware from computer to computer.   Eliza has no software and so cannot be attacked by malware.
16. Excel must be closed down and updated on a regular basis.   Eliza never stops and cannot be stopped - no updates and no downtime.
17. Excel must be installed on all computer - a computer without Excel cannot view any data.   Eliza has no software to install, so data can be processed on any kind of desktop, laptop, tablet or smart phone.
18. Excel spreadsheets can be changed by anybody who can gain access to the spreadsheet.   Eliza has an advanced multi-factor authentication sign-in service that is continually monitored to keep out criminals.

What is a CRM:
1. A CRM is like a carefully designed and integrated set of 1000 spreadsheets, forms and pages.   The first evaluation factor is that all data is integrated, data is not replicated and encrypted data cannot be lost.
2. A second factor is that a CRM includes spreadsheets, so all that spreadsheet knowledge is reused by the CRM - its a perfectly natural evolution.
3. Eliza is your Artificial Intelligent Assistant who works 24*7 to monitor every data request.   Every CRM decision is made by Eliza using Business Rules that are derived from business policies.

Excel:
1. Excel was first released in 1995 and while it has had many incompatible versions, the core productivity benefit has not changed in 20 years.   What was a productivity improvement from 1995 to 2005, has ceased to have any productivity improvement since 2006.   Surveys show that people using Excel may be less productive in 2016 that they were in 2006.   A possible reason being that as Excel complexity has increased, people are not able to exploit that extra complexity.
2. The current generation use mobile phones that cannot process Excel sheets or Word documents in an effective way.   Its a bit like giving a horse saddle to a person with a car - horse transport is obsolete and skills in horse riding is not needed for a person with a car.

Network:
1. Microsoft have served notice that network drives are no longer a safe and secure method of working.   A company that chooses to continue to use network drives will eventually be hit with a ransomware Trojan that will make all data on all computers unusable.   Some people may imagine that it will never happen to them - they are gambling their entire business survival and their customers data security - for what?

Document Control:
2016 Sep 16 : Latest edition as (public) page 164762     Part of common ITIL application service.