Fu Qiang said the thinking and precipitation of an architect Menu

Talking about the three-dimensional architecture through the dilemma of WPS

Wang Fuqiang

2022-07-13

---

• 1 Background
• 2 Information Regulatory Framework
• 3 Business Architecture
• 4Technical Architecture
• 5 What to do

---

1 Background

Some people reported that the documents they wrote through WPS were locked, and some said that their local files were deleted:

Jinshan also refuted the rumor:

I believe that the credibility of this rumor is still acceptable. It should be a compliance issue, not arbitrary deletion of files. If you delete files at will, it will involve destroying user data. This, the crime of destroying computer systems is not applicable. Not applicable 😉

In fact, many users reported before that, for cloud documents or cloud music, they would either view the content of the user’s cloud document, or delete/lock the user’s local music files. In fact, these are all compliance issues. It’s useless. To operate legally, a company has to abide by the legal framework of the country where it is located, right?

From this, we can deduce three-dimensional architectural problems…

2 Information Regulatory Framework

Let’s put aside the sense of morality first. In a place where there is a need for information supervision, the most effective way to design a set of effective supervision implementation framework is the law, put it into the mysterious power behind the law, and then expand to the regional and entity. Implementation, this is a more vigorous architecture, and it is also the architecture design that we should focus on first.

As for press credentials and activities, they are only part of the operation.

As an entity under the regulatory framework, the enterprise operates under the constraints of the framework design.

3 Business Architecture

WPS products were first stand-alone products, and even products of the DOS era:

But stand-alone products have one of the biggest headaches, especially in our land: piracy.

Therefore, with the popularity of the Internet and the emergence of the SaaS model, major software manufacturers have gradually shifted their product form from stand-alone to cloud and SaaS models. Of course, there are office coordination considerations, but from the perspective of business model or business architecture, the SaaS model brings The benefits are not only natural anti-piracy (because of lack of trust, only core assets can be collected), but more importantly, from the manufacturer’s point of view, they can collect rent every year and have cash flow every month.

If in the past users could buy out the ownership of software by paying, today users can only pay for the right to use the software. This is the essence of SaaS products and business models: Rent!

4Technical Architecture

Now let’s focus on the most common architecture in everyone’s cognition, that is, “technical architecture”. If you were asked to design the technical architecture of cloud products like WPS as an architect, how would you design it?

Is it the same amount of synchronization between cloud and terminal? Or is it cloud-based and end-based? Even directly through the browser + cloud model, all core functions are received on the cloud?

If we want to detect whether the user’s document content meets compliance requirements, do we scan it directly in the cloud? Or like the antivirus software in the past, the virus database is sent to the user’s computer for execution? To lock non-compliant files, do we directly control permissions in the cloud, or do we issue instructions?

Well, leaving some questions for everyone to think about, after all, we are not the architects of WPS 😉

5 What to do

This may be what everyone is most concerned about. Yes, even if we understand this, what should we do?

There are at least two paths. As for how to go, of course you can figure it out for yourself~

Or, compliance operations.

For example, Yang Fuchuan of Huazhang has done the practice and experience of using WPS in the publishing industry that day, and there are compliance issues that remind authors to pay attention to the content creation process.

Or, choose another product.

There are at least three categories of products that can be used as substitutes:

1. Office-like alternatives: These alternatives are mainly for people who are accustomed to using Office (provided, of course, that such alternatives can be sought), such as falling back to an older version of Microsoft Office, or choosing an open source such as LibreOffice product;
2. Block Editor alternatives: Block-based editors are now mature, such as Notion. If you can get used to such content editors, this is also a good alternative;
3. Alternatives to Markdown: This is more geek, and it is purely text. It is extremely unfriendly to non-programmer users and is not recommended for the general public. Although I use this method most of the time now, I have talked about this before (git + markdown + pandoc);

Alright, GL & HF, that’s it for today!

---

---

---

©Wang Fuqiang Personal Copyright, All Rights Reserved.