ComputerBuddies is a group that was formed in the Chicago metro area as an information exchange and social outlet for people with interests in computers. Members of ComputerBuddies range from veteran, big-system computer programmers and operators to young Web-heads. Over the years, members have come to rely on each other for honest, practical advice on a wide range of computer issues. People with a passion for computers in the Chicago area know that ComputerBuddies is the source of reliable answers for just about any type of computer question. Membership has grown, and the group sponsors an Internet information exchange forum as well as frequent social gatherings.

At a recent social event, a guest speaker was on the agenda. The speaker was a long time member of ComputerBuddies, and he asked to be given the chance to speak at a meeting in order to share a recent experience. The speaker is an IS project manager at a major Chicago area manufacturer, and was in charge of the firm’s first client-server implementation project. The project involved the development of a 3-tiered client-server architecture for a major manufacturing application.

As the speaker made his remarks, his disillusionment with client-server was obvious. “This project has been a nightmare for me and my project team. We went way past our target date on the project. No one anticipated how difficult it would be to get all the pieces of this system to work together correctly. We chose this architecture in part because it seemed to be the least expensive option, but we’ve really blown whatever cost advantage we thought we’d have from the cheap hardware on labor costs. Now that we’ve got the system up and running, the users are constantly complaining about how slow it is. Right now, I wish we’d gone with our tried and true server-based architecture.” Upon hearing this, some of the younger audience members looked shocked. Other veteran systems people nodded in agreement with the speaker's words

What has happened here? Why has the speaker experienced problems with the client-server architecture? Should the speaker’s organization have anticipated the problems they did experience?