No, what I'm saying is that working locally provides another layer of backup over and above your porperly architected data storage solution. Even if you set things up right restoring your shared data area after a crash takes time, time when people can't be productive if that's the only source of data.
There's always a magic combination of lost drives that'll hose your raid array, it's the nature of the beast. I'm not saying raid is a bad thing, in the modern world where data storage is frequently too big for effective backup raid is an absolutely necessary, I'm simply saying it's not bulletproof. If the gremlins are in a bad mood you can always be hosed.
Always on until your network goes down, or that computer pukes all over itself. Centralization of functionality does nothing but centralize your critical point of failure. The more a company lives and dies by a small number of computers the worse shape it's in if one of those computers has troubles.
All of which are nearly infinitesimal compared to losing a drive in a dell desktop.. But you clearly don't understand RAID
Always on until your network goes down, or that computer pukes all over itself.
Heres the rub, what if your desktop pukes itself? with a web based app all I have to do is throw another desktop at you rather than fart around paying help desk to fix a box I should by all rights not care about.
Centralization of functionality does nothing but centralize your critical point of failure.
(1) There person in charge of that point is a competent IT professional, not Jane the secretary who opens every ecard she gets in her email..
(2) With the use of redundant servers, *GOOD* data storage architecture, and incremental logging of data you stand less of a chance losing time on a centralized app than if you have one or two people with critical information on their desktop.
The more a company lives and dies by a small number of computers the worse shape it's in if one of those computers has troubles.
My feeling is the less control you give to experienced IT professionals the worse off any company will be..