The Disappearing Desktop - It's Real This Time

[Richard Gaskin]

Dan Shafer wrote:
> My prediction -- based on a lot of evidence and clinched by two  leaked 
> Microsoft memos that you really need to read (they're  indirectly linked 
> in my blog entry) -- is that the days of the  desktop app are indeed 
> finally numbered. At best, we will see  desktops reduced to being 
> containers for ultra-thin clients and  specialized Internet browsing 
> tools while *everything else* runs as a  (probably ad-supported) Web 
> service.

Heaven help those of us who compute on trains and airplanes. :)

The observation from my "Beyond the Browser" article still stands:

    "Many articles have been published extolling the
     virtues of Browser-based applications, but few
    (if any) of these were written in one...”

<http://www.fourthworld.com/embassy/articles/netapps.html>

As long as folks use local data, there will be desktop apps.

I would encourage Microsoft to go down this proposed road. If they turn 
MS Word into a browser service it'll finally kill their stranglehold on 
that market, and open it up to word processors that still make sense.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com