Actually, what I mean by “local look and feel” is a simple desktop “icon” that fires up a blank browser (i.e. no navigational tools).

One example of an application that gives me the “local feel” is the Gollum Wikipedia browser -

http://gollum.easycp.de/en/

You asked about Widgets… ThinkFree has some – http://icdocs.thinkfree.com/widgets/index.html. We are still playing around with it, but it is a pretty simple way to view documents on your desktop from a web application.

As for Robert’s comment about the “local look and feel”, it seems that most AJAX applications have limitations that restrict their ability to have that desktop feel. Java applications can achieve this much easier, but there are trade-offs.

online: how many passwords would you like to manage? even elgoog can’t get a perfect singlesign on running as they race ahead (used writely lately? or gapps for your domain?)…and security issues, far from resolved…

while Google developers are still busy knitting together their various web-assets to form a defacto online-office suite, JotSpot might be a few steps ahead, offering a comprehensive collaboration suite for small/medium teams. JotSpot is based on a wiki…

People will get over the privacy concerns. People got over privacy concerns with the internet, with cellular phones, etc., so they will get over this.

The key is to “centralize” storage using decentralized storage facilities (if that makes sense). For example, you login using a name and password, and a router would automatically route you to the correct storage facility.

This way, you have one simple login interace, and your data is where you want it to be (even your own server, for example).

Example:

You login to Writely. Instead of storing your data at Google, your data is stored at whatever storage facility is defined by the “router”.

Also, just curious to learn what others feel about the privacy and confidentialty argument against storing business data on hosted services…

You are absolutely right. If Writely could obtain that “local feel”, I would be more inclined to use it. I just can’t get passed the browser feeling – using a word processor with navigational tools just doesn’t feel right. Another thing that stops me from using Writely is the fact that I have to rely on Google’s network and Google’s storage space – why can’t I bring this locally into my intranet?

Also, about the “iTunes” being replaced via a web-application. It’s quite possible that the music aspect could be replicated. In fact, it could be replicated with your music being held remotely – that means no matter which system you’re on, your music is right there. So not only would iTunes be compatible with the remote storage aspect, but if you happen across a machine without media players – you’re still in luck.

Who knows, maybe in 10 years your online data will be closely integrated with other things;

Home theatres
Stereos
TV’s
PDA’s
Cellular devices

With that said, I think the “web as a platform” might be most significant in NON-PC areas. Imagine a cellphone that has a front layer to handle hardware (as usual), but the complete backend is thin-client layer that handles applications and data storage.

By the way, OM: your poll does show up in the (webbased!) rss reader Bloglines, but the vote button doesn’t work, which I think can easily be fixed, by just including the full url in the “action” part, and not the relative url for this site!

however, there is very big potential in the collaborative field (writely, jotspot…are quite promising in this area). I don’t get why Microsoft hasn’t included low-profile (=without the need for expensive microsoft-server-software), web-based collaboration into office for years…they could have dominated this market way before we all fell for AJAX…I’ld love full-featured desktop apps fully integrated into some kind of collaboration-web-service…

The right question would be: Are Desktop apps for LessThanAverage Joe dead?

Yeah, he might be more comfortable with that ridiculously simple rich text component than with Word, or with Google’s Spreadsheets app than Excel just because they apply the “KISS” principle or “less is more”, so they get rid of the bloat. Add some collaboration, a “beta” label, some buzz and venture and we’re set.

Still, you are soooo limited by the HTML fiasco. While desktop apps are limited by the hardware/OS layers only, the web apps are living in a messy wild jungle of HTML/Javascript/Compatibility/BrowserWars/StoneAge era.

There was a nice quote on bash.org:
“-Name me one thing a mac can’t do compared to a PC
– Um…Right click?”

The same goes with this technology.
You can’t even print correctly, but hey, I’ll wait for a another article with a rethorical title “Are the printed documents dead?” :)

Emil

IN the consumer client space … You still need good ol thick client software for most consumer apps. No web based app is going to replace iTunes anytime soon. Or creativity as mentioned before.

Business apps however will be going completely web based because as mentioned before they are information based. Also they are by nature client-server. Such apps are better off on the web. Putting them on the web makes it easier to maintain and a whole other set of benefits which have been beaten to death.

I second Robert Dewey’s comment here and Nitin too has a point to ponder upon.