Saturday, December 12, 2009

Term for "non-cloud" software application?

What do you call a "non-cloud" offering? In particular, if it is your offering, and especially if you also have a cloud offering but don't want to assign a negative connotation to the non-cloud version? I'm looking for a short adjective here -- one that ideally would satisfy programmers and marketing folks alike. The term must fairly clear -- that is, it should suggest non-cloud. Of course, a wide consensus on a term would essentially solve that problem.

I'm kinda hoping someone has already figured this out, but I haven't seen a good answer yet. In the mean time, perhaps we can discuss alternatives in a community fashion.

Potential but (in my view) problematic terms:
  • Traditional, fixed, bound, grounded: too negative connotation
  • Local: not necessarily accurate
  • Static: overloaded already
  • Stationary: unclear
  • Determinate: unclear
  • Server: incomplete, unclear, overloaded
That's not to say that I'd reject one of the above terms if chosen; they just don't quite sound right to my ears (yet).
Copyright 2011 by William Cain