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Will everything go to the cloud? If so, in which direction? Google-Gears? Flash,AIR,JavaFX?

See also: Does desktop development matter?

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Gonçalo Veiga
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    I've asked myself this question a few times.. the posts here have encouraged me though. I see how things are not so robotic, such as 'perfect is better', but we're still humans.. feelings, money and ethics together will favour the windows apps.. very interesting. – lb. Dec 03 '09 at 09:56

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No, not until someone comes up with a very good argument for why I should let someone else control my data. And guarantees that my Internet connection is always on and available everywhere.

Steven A. Lowe
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  • Totally agree about the data, bit. However google gears allows modified web apps to be executed locally. Wordpress is a great example of how this can work well - journalists need not be connected to write an article. – aaaidan Dec 17 '08 at 04:55
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I asked The Magic Eight Ball - it said, "No way!"

Shog9
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I've been asking this question for nearly a decade. In my business we build and sell both Windows and Web apps that do roughly the same thing. Four years ago I would have told you that we'd be 80-20 in favor of web apps by now. However, in terms of the numbers shipped, we are still about 60-40 in favor of the Windows apps.

While I once thought that the real barrier to the acceptance of software as a service was simply a desire for a better, richer user interface (which Silverlight, Air, etc. would solve), I'm now inclined to think that there are a lot of people who simply prefer a one-time purchase and local control over a web connected subscription model. Because this preference is rooted in personal perceptions of value for the money, I don't think that technology will change anything as quickly as we technologists think it will. Thus, I'd wager that Windows apps are with us for longer than we developers will ever expect; another 10 years at least.

Mark Brittingham
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Personally my dream for this is that you will just carry around a USB stick that contains an OS and all the applications you use, along with all your personal settings. You can hook up this drive to any computer you come across, and get your own personalized experience every time, no matter which computer you are using. You always have access to all your applications, and all you data. When you get home at night, or check into specified computers, A backup is performed so that you don't have to worry about losing all your data. This is somewhat similar to what is being done with Gdium, and the G-Key, but I think/hope ideas like this will become much more popular in the future.

Kibbee
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  • This would assume that the computer you are plugging into would have the necessary specifications to actually run your OS and the apps – TheTXI Apr 11 '09 at 20:12
  • Not a lot to ask these days with virtual machine technology. –  Apr 11 '09 at 20:26
  • Well, considering that most people don't even need 1/4 of the computing power they have now, for most applications, I don't see why this should be a problem in the future. Maybe not for high end games, but for most productivity and web browsing tasks, this would suffice for most people. – Kibbee Apr 12 '09 at 02:06
  • With the widespread of broadband internet connection and web application you won't need to carry your USB stick around. – Jader Dias Sep 25 '09 at 16:32
  • That sounds like a dream.. it's not theoretically impossible either.. it's the practicalities and our own preference that could stand in front of this 'cloud utopia'... good thoughts though. :) – lb. Dec 03 '09 at 09:54
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The answer is very likely No, unless we discover secret physics in our universe or some other odd loopholes. Now for some sci-fi.

Consider this, one day we may have Quantum Cloud Servers that can process a Gazillion FLOPS per seconds, however as far as our knowledge goes we cannot send those results any faster than the speed of light.

So now imagine that the "Super Cloud", that can process anything no matter what, in 1 mili second, but if those results can't be received within a few mili seconds the "performance sucks". Imagine a space ship for example it can't possible rely on a cloud server, it would need a "Desktop".

Now this sounds crazy, but even today, as of 2008, a photon will take longer to cross from one side of a CPU chip to the other, than it takes to for the transistors gate-states to change. So we are already reaching the no faster than speed of light limit.

Robert Gould
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So all we'll need are dumb terminals? Haven't we been here before? Well, ok, they'll certainly be prettier applications with multimedia and all of that. But, dumb terminals, none the less.

It doesn't seem like the pendulum should swing quite that far back.

thursdaysgeek
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It will be quite a while before web technologies can truly replace desktop applications, but I have no doubt it will happen at some point. Technology advances too fast and consistently for it not to happen.

I doubt that any of the technologies you mentioned will be relevant then though. I think browsers will move towards a VM-like state that has increasingly more power to create better and better web experiences.

Eran Galperin
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Yes, but I doubt the technology that will dominate exists yet.

user45568
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No. Data-centric apps and communication-centric apps can be cloudized. However, processing-centric apps are less ameneble to being dumped onto the web.

Paul Nathan
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Heavy image processing and gaming might be a bit too heavy for a web application, but I think that many applications will eventually.

AlexCuse
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Nope, desktop applications are just stuck in limbo at the moment. It'll come back in full force once we finally solve the little issue of security.

Pyrolistical
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I really don't see how this is going to happen any time soon, and by soon I mean in the next 10 to 15 years. Or even why one would want to. Intensive games, quantitative finance and science and defense, none of these would benefit from running in a web browser.

ApplePieIsGood
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I think for browsers (HTML/Java/CSS/Flash/Whatever) to eclipse native applications in the truest sense, the performance of computer architectures (CPU/Memory) will have to become so enormously powerful that you'd be capable of running a hard real-time process inside a browser framework and not see any reduced determinism or hard-real time performance.

That will require some truly significant advancements in computing, which as of now are not expected in the next decade.

ApplePieIsGood
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  • Those browser technologies you talk about our today's technologies. Who knows what will be the dominant browser technology in 5 years – Eran Galperin Dec 12 '08 at 01:37
  • Indeed, but does it matter? Whatever it is will be some friendly and elegant abstraction that makes it easy to write applications. At the end of the day, its not the technology that will need to evolve, it is the computing architecture that it runs on. – ApplePieIsGood Dec 12 '08 at 01:55
  • Yeah, and HTTP as a transport mechanism just doesn't cut the mustard just yet. – danieltalsky Dec 12 '08 at 06:13
  • There are now services like http://pinemango.com that offers a real IDE directly from your browser using computational power in the cloud! Note: It even comes with collaborative capability enabled. – Ming Tsai Aug 31 '13 at 15:49
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WebApps are great for a lot of things, but really the dealbreaker still is performance and local hardware integration.

If there's a good native app to do something, and an AIR app to do the same thing, I'll always use the native app. HTTP has it's limitations.

danieltalsky
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I think they will coopt each other. It will be possible to have components that are web-hosted, and parts that are local. Flex apps can use both local and browser sandboxes. If Silverlight doesn't yet, it will need to.

dkretz
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Individuals many not care where they put the family holiday pics but big business will be very careful what they let loose in the cloud.

Dhaust
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People get way too caught up in looking for "the next big thing". It doesn't really matter! The web and the desktop as they exist today are nothing more than two separate platforms for apps. The line between those platforms is blurring more and more, but both platforms have advantages and disadvantages for people making apps, and in the end, the user only cares where the best apps are.

I say both will stay around, but soon enough you won't be able to tell them apart from an end-user point of view.

Jim Puls
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This is like arguing peanut butter is going to replace jelly. The truth is they both function fine alone or even better when used together in MANY cases. Personally I think the future will see a majority of instances of both being used in combination rather than separately one or the other. That said, there will always be separate instances where it makes sense - I don't see wikipedia or flickr becoming stand alone apps anytime soon. Similarly, I am sure there are desktop apps which have no benefit from being web enabled (although oddly enough I can't think of a good example at the moment).

I also agree with previous posters that the line between the two will become increasingly blurred.

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There are things out there at the moment like eyeOS which are coming a long way, but when it boils down to sheer performance and gaming there's a limit to what browsers can do.

John T
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Google has introduced Google Chrome OS as a bet that the desktop applications will no longer be essential.

Jader Dias
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