Open Thread: Do Rich Internet Applications Matter to You?

At the beginning of this month, Microsoft made noise at MIX ’07 about their Silverlight platform designed to bring .NET to the browser at the same time it knocks Adobe’s Flash out of it. Both Silverlight and Flash aim at the rich internet application space — a perceived gap in what users want and what they are getting from their overly light web apps. The idea is that we need more rich interactivity from our browser apps than they give us. But is this just developer fantasy, or does it represent a real end user need?

In 2003, Sun technologist Tim Bray observed that “both IT admins and end-users prefer browser-based apps to traditional compiled clients, for everything except content creation.” He suggests that it’s mainly developers who perceive the need for rich Internet applications.

I’m curious what you really want out of your application interfaces. Gmail, a “poor” Internet application in that it’s completely Ajax-based, offers many people a more-than-acceptable interface to email. Del.icio.us also provides plenty of power without richness. Zoho Writer may be a fine replacement for “rich” offline word processors in an era of web publishing.

True, most of us have a need for desktop applications, especially related to our particular profession. Graphic designers need PhotoShop, book authors need MS Word or OpenOffice, software developers might choose Eclipse. Perhaps rich desktop applications and poor Internet applications are complements, never to converge into the hybrid web-desktop apps trumpeted by web technology futurists.

Do you see a need for more richness in your Internet applications? What desktop applications will you continue to use into the indefinite future? What have you moved into the browser?

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