In our daily travels across the web we've come across one of our competitors who are prepared to lease websites to their clients.
On the face of it the concept of ?website leasing? sounds a good idea.
From the client's point of view it means they get a large, complex and potentially costly website for their business for a small monthly fee without the outlay of a large amount of capital. This is great if your cash flow is tight or if you're a new start-up with a limited budget. As such we can understand why the idea might sound attractive to some companies.
However, we believe that whilst the ?leasing? concept works fine for commodity capital equipment such as company cars, IT equipment or office furniture; the ?leasing? idea has some inherent flaws as a method funding a web development project.
If you're a business contemplating leasing your next website, here's some food for thought.
The Pitfalls of Leasing
We don't think websites should be treated as commodity items like a car or piece of office furniture either of which you can buy like-for-like from alternative suppliers.
A decent website is a tool for your business that can perform a number of functions such as enhancing your brand, improving customer communications, generating leads or creating direct revenue through online sales.
The needs of each business are individual and as such we believe it's more or less impossible to offer a ?commodity? that fits a bespoke and creative business need.
So that's why websites shouldn't be treated as a commodity.
As for the flaws with website leasing, consider these factors before entering into a lease agreement:
1. Who owns the website either during or at the end of the lease agreement? If the arrangement is like leasing a company car, then the company never owns the car and it is taken back once the lease agreement ends. Would you want to lose your website once it's established?
2. What happens if the website developers leasing your site to you go out of business? Does you website simply die? Think of the added expense and inconvenience this would entail.
3. What happens if you default on your payments or if you ?fall out? with your developers? Would your website be ?withdrawn? costing you further inconvenience and downtime?
4. How flexible is the leasing agreement. If you own your website you are free to use alternative and developers who may be able to offer you additional or improved services that your ?leasing developers? cannot Under a lease agreement you're stuck.
5. How easy or difficult is it to get out of the lease agreement and if so can you take your website with you? The consequences of not being able to do so can be costly.
So in short, we would say; think hard before contemplating the leasing of your website.
If cash is tight, why not consider a small business loan through your bank or even ask your web developers, if like us; they offer some sort of professional fees financing plan. Such arrangements will help you with your cash-flow whilst still allowing you to retain ownership and control of your own website.
The answer to that question is both! But I don’t mean at the same time. Medieval Knights changed over the course of centuries and this change was more than just in their combat techniques, tactics, weapons and armor. They also changed in their attitudes of how they handled their people and how they approached forming and maintaining their lands and kingdoms.
The Early Knights
The period we consider to be the Dark Ages, which started in the 5th century with the fall of Rome, was a very dark time for all of Europe. And it was also a very dark time for the reputation of the Knight. Most of Europe was fragmented into pieces. Trade and prosperity came to a halt, plague hit the continent, and many invading armies came from both the north and the south. To make matters worse, all of Europe was fighting within itself. Small kingdoms were pitted against each other in constant war that lasted for centuries. This overall environment of difficulty, war, and poverty was the breeding ground for Knights that were cruel and unjust. It was a symptom of the times that the only code of the Knight was the code of force. Force was the way that most of the continent acted. It was the predominant way someone could gain and control power, land, wealth and people. Knights from these early centuries were probably very barbaric and bad by today’s standards.
The Rise of Christianity
In the 10th through 12th centuries the behavior of Knights began to change. The Catholic Church was rising in power and it was exerting its power and its tenets over people. In the early centuries many Knights, kings and lords joined with the rising power of the church with their own agendas in mind, but the tenets of the religion in as far as treating people better began to make a foothold into the continent.
The Launching of the Crusades
In 1095 the first crusades were launched. This marked the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of a new period of Medieval Europe. It began the process of bringing all of Europe together under one leadership. This brought to an end the centuries long warring between small lordships in Europe and this allowed the re-establishment of trade and the return of peace to the continent. It also firmly established the culture and beliefs of the Catholic Church into the social structure of the land. These beliefs included many things including the concepts of killing as a bad thing and that a person of privilege should treat the poor with dignity. Following the religion of Christianity became the most important aspect of a Knight’s life and it is in these later centuries of the Middle Ages when Knights began to change and become more chivalric and good by today’s standards.
We can never really know for certain exactly how things were a thousand years ago. Every Knight was surely different, and to know whether a Knight was villainous or chivalric we would have to look at each one individually. But we do know that the early centuries of the Middle Ages were a difficult and barbaric time and Knights were probably likewise barbaric. And we do know that over the centuries the continent of Europe was transformed into a peaceful place with a religion to live by. And Knights followed this religion. Over these centuries chivalry and a code of conduct slowly evolved and took root in the culture of Europe, and the code of conduct of the Knight.
Both Keyclicks & Will Kalif are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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