Circle of Life

It's interesting the path that technology in fundraising has taken over the last 25 years- and the future that it's on course.

25 years ago, only the large, the very wealthy, or the fiscally insane organizations could afford computers and databases. These were truly monsters- car size cabinets or larger- which had to be meticulously cared for and were very expensive to maintain.

So expensive to maintain, that organizations would actually 'time-share' and rent their mainframes and share their costs with other organizations.

Years go by, and Bill Gates starts a little company called Microsoft, and we have a PC on every desk. Now, all the computing power is at the desktop, right on the users desk! All that cheap (relatively speaking) power in the hands of the people that need it the most!

But wait- how do we share information? Even here at SofterWare, back in 1995, we utilized 'Sneaker-Ware' (moving data on a disk by hand from one computer to another) more than our network- it was easier. In fact, even today, how many of you have transferred files back and forth using a USB jump drive instead of a cable???


Which leads me to my point- everything seems to be circling back to a hosted model- and it all makes sense. What used to cost thousands of dollars a month 25 years ago, now costs $9.99/month, and you have the huge added benefit of being connected.

But will the pendulum switch again???? Stay tuned....