Internet Cafe Management Software

This software generally refers to the program or programs that let you charge when people use the computers your cafe provides.

People who bring in their own computers would not be using this software. You can charge for wi-fi access, like some airports do, but more and more free wi-fi is becoming the expectation, and if you try to charge for it you'll just look cheap. People will go elsewhere.

Cyber cafe management software needs to have a few basic features to do a good job. It should time usage, so you can charge per hour or even per minute use. It should protect the computer and your servers from a malicious or just stupid user (gee... let's look in here and delete some of those operating files). That keeps you from spending hours restoring a system that somebody broke. The software also needs to control access (or maybe not, depending on your clientele) so you don't have someone watching porn with the speakers on in your cafe.



Cafe management software is not a heavy duty application, so while you should have nice computers for your users to work on, you do not need state of the art gaming monsters. (However... you might get some extra teens customers when they find out you do have a super-fast computer available... some people like the extra advantage a little RAM gets them). By nice, I mean computers that have 14 inch or larger screens, have current software (the most recent version of Microsoft Office, for example, and perhaps a complete Adobe suite of programs for a Mac), and have processor speeds of 2 GHz or more.

Here are a few of the more popular internet cafe management software packages, and some details about their features and prices:

CafeSuite

This is a fairly expensive application, coming in at $450 for an unlimited license for use on ten computers. You can also get the license for ten computers for three months -- that costs $110.

The most robust features here are the system restore capabilities, though many systems administrators seem to like to set up one computer how they want, then take a disk image and make a copy so they can do a clean install with all their customized settings right from the disk image file. It depends how you want to do things.

CafeSuites lets you create employee accounts, do database backups, and has solid security measures. You can lock unused computers to prevent someone sitting down and getting free access if you're not watching.

What I like best is the feature to reserve a time to use a computer. Not knowing if a computer will be available can be a real disconvenience for a serious user, so being able to promise access might set you apart from other cyber cafes.


HandyCafe

This is a free program, so if you're on a budget, you're going to what to take a close look. It is also being used at over 25,000 internet cafes, so its got to have something going for it. HandyCafe allows you to remotely control all the computers on your network (so you don't have to walk over and interupt a user), comes with firewall and web filtering capability, and allows you to block specific websites from access. You can also monitor and charge for printer use, and you can assign "cashier control" so different employees can have their own accounts and you can track and compare their work. HandyCafe also works with PlayStation and other popular games and is compatible with Windows 7 (but not with Windows NT and 95).