Comments on: The Desktop Application is Dead…Almost http://www.pathf.com/blogs/2007/10/the-desktop-app/ Running commentary about agile development, user experience design and Ajax. Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:06:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Scriptor http://www.pathf.com/blogs/2007/10/the-desktop-app/#comment-277 Scriptor Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:25:33 +0000 http://www.pathf.com/blogs/?p=229#comment-277 <p>I must at least partly disagree with this post. Then again, it might just be the kind of users we have in mind. With businesses you can assume that they at least try to look at alternatives that may be more cost-effective, efficient, etc. In that sense providing RIAs over an intranet server would make good sense.</p> <p>On the other hand, we face the multitudes of users who may have only started to realize the Internet's a bit different. For them, "word processor" is a synonym for MS Word, and the web's for email, chat, social networks, etc. For listening to music, iTunes is still quite popular, though I don't have enough knowledge about online music players/organizers to comment about that.</p> <p>Lastly, how could you forget us, the programmers? If you have found a browser or web-based IDE, or even a full-featured editor, I'd definitely like to see it. While RIAs do wonders in providing new ways to use the Internet, they are usually still developed on the desktop (I think).</p> <p>I personally like developing browser apps, though I don't quite know how the desktop runtimes will go. I guess what it all comes down to is whether there will be a sufficient pool of developers and whether businesses feel it provides enough advantages in terms of usability, immediate costs, and maintenance costs.</p> I must at least partly disagree with this post. Then again, it might just be the kind of users we have in mind. With businesses you can assume that they at least try to look at alternatives that may be more cost-effective, efficient, etc. In that sense providing RIAs over an intranet server would make good sense.

On the other hand, we face the multitudes of users who may have only started to realize the Internet’s a bit different. For them, “word processor” is a synonym for MS Word, and the web’s for email, chat, social networks, etc. For listening to music, iTunes is still quite popular, though I don’t have enough knowledge about online music players/organizers to comment about that.

Lastly, how could you forget us, the programmers? If you have found a browser or web-based IDE, or even a full-featured editor, I’d definitely like to see it. While RIAs do wonders in providing new ways to use the Internet, they are usually still developed on the desktop (I think).

I personally like developing browser apps, though I don’t quite know how the desktop runtimes will go. I guess what it all comes down to is whether there will be a sufficient pool of developers and whether businesses feel it provides enough advantages in terms of usability, immediate costs, and maintenance costs.

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