One business that’s proved to be recession-proof, is the burgeoning world of Internet cafes. With mounting job losses and a need for inexpensive entertainment to blow off steam, more and more people are seeking out gaming and web surfing options. For the unemployed, the neighborhood cyber cafe is often used as a spot to set up shop for a few hours, browse online job postings, maintain a social networking presence and send e-mails to contacts. Without their employer-supplied laptop, laid off people may have no other option for Internet access. In an extreme that hasn’t yet become the norm in the US, Japanese media recently reported that laid off workers were not only booking time in Internet cafes for job seeking and related tasks, but were using the facilities to sleep in rather than pay for accommodations.

When the first Internet cafes opened in San Francisco in 1991, the equipment was capable of accessing BBSs and electronic mail. The operators couldn’t have foreseen how widely accepted the concept would become. At that time, the computer terminals in the cafes were coin-operated, but this would hardly suffice for the complexity and security operations required for today’s operations. A secondary industry has sprouted up around the need for dedicated cyber cafe software to manage the access, payment and security requirements of Internet cafes and gaming centers.

The idea of a cyber cafe likely seems pretty simplistic. A customer pays some money and in return, gets access to a computer for a set amount of time. However, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes in order to run the business. Computers must be secured so customers don’t alter configurations or disable the system; the ability for customers to pay without leaving the computer is usually a requirement; bandwidth usage and upload/download rates need to be controlled. A capable software package is essential to effectively managing the operation.