Q: Why can't I just run the webcam software and store the images and video locally, on my computer? Answer: Theoretically, you could, but for most applications you find many significant limitations. For example, to view the images or video from another location (e.g. a different office, or home), you have to enable a web server on your computer that is capturing video. This is a well-known security risk and exposes your system to many Internet-based attacks. Also, if you are providing entertainment, you will have to provide sufficient bandwidth to the system to support a large number of users. This is not cost-effective for most businesses. Thirdly, the archiving and maintenance of images is an entire job by itself. For various reasons you may want to keep images for many months (in the case of terminated employees), and hence you must consider how to archive and maintain the backups, avoid exhausing disk storage, etc. Fourth, typical webcam software is not designed to provide the useful features we have designed. A good example of this is our Knowtification feature, which can call you at any phone number if your system stops sending images. This might happen if there is a power outage, or an intruder terminates your phone line, or turns off your computer. If you were storing images locally, then you would not be able to be notified, since the computer would be down. Alternatively, for important entertainment events, you may want to be called if there is even a brief outage.