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Has the browser become more important than the OS?

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f0dder:
By funneling so many new apps through the browser, you seem to be using it for things it was never setup to do, much like using a car when you really need a pickup truck.
--- End quote ---
Yuppers. But there's so much interest vetted in Teh IntarwebTM, books written about the subjects, people trying to promote themselves etc. that it doesn't really matter if the peg is square and the hole is round - they'll make it fit!

The craze will hopefully pass sometime, and then internet applications will be used where they make sense, and desktop apps will continue where they make sense.

nosh:
True. Everytime I see yet another "new/unique/groundbreaking" web service I say a little prayer for the "idiot "angel investors" behind it.

The craze will hopefully pass sometime
--- End quote ---
Not as long as there's this little thing called "greed" - everyone wants to win the Teh Intraweb Sweepstakes™!

Lashiec:
I live in my browser, but let's face it, so far, the Web 2.0 is not going to where their supporters want it to go. I remember reading that Vista would be the last BIG OS from Microsoft, and that the next version would be more centered in the web, as the world was moving there.

Until now, nothing has moved to web, and despite the mass media constantly repeating the desktop app (and the PC as well) is dead, and the future is a thin client (this brings back a strong resemblance of the Java craze back in the 90s), the only thing the Web 2.0 is offering is tons of services for social interaction, and for more exotic needs (just take a look at the participants in the latest TechCrunch40). Lots of services are launched everyday, venture capital is coming from god-knows-where, and 99% of those do not have a chance to actually being noticed before being swallowed by some big company (which, incidentally, uses to be centered around the "old" paradigm) for an insane amount of cash. I'm wondering if we're in the middle of another bubble...

Instead of creating useful services to replace desktop apps, and thus make some chores less tiresome, I see that startups are creating other needs to be fulfilled (just thinking in the new Twitter fad), which means we're not going anywhere (actually, the best way to update your Twitter is using desktop apps!). As you may expect, most of these services will go either unnoticed or face a slow death. Let's not even talk about the technical aspects of a future computer experience based on the cloud, just like you guys mention, it's nearly unfeasible, and pretty stupid on part of those proposing it, primarily because of connection limitations (the majority of the people isn't connected through a T1 connection, much more the opposite), security considerations, etc.

Fortunately, we also has some real options. Google, for example, has created really robust services, which truly act as a substitute of desktop apps, and so are doing Yahoo! or Microsoft. We also have other important services, like Last.FM, Flickr or Zoho, which cover other particular needs of people. I said it some other time, the computing world is going towards synergy between the web and the desktop, which is fantastic. Both are different paradigms, with their good and bad things, so that's why there's no such thing as the replacement of one by the other, some things are done better in a browser, others in a desktop. The combination of the two is where the power resides, and fortunately some people is noticing this (like the Mozilla guys with their Prism project).

Perhaps for people with simple needs when it comes computing (mail, web browsing, IM, etc.), a web-based experience could be enough, but even then, I'm sure at some point they'll want to do something else, and they'll have to resort to desktop computing.

</Web 2.0 rant> ;D

PD: Also one thing that bugs me. Web services are constantly changing, but unless someone is reporting what changes are introduced (either someone from the company or an external person), every time they do that, and you log in to your account, you have to rediscover the site again, because it's not only that they introduced new functionality, but also they changed the place where things used to be. The primary example is PhotoBucket, which has changed 4 times during a 6-month span, breaking my old use habits, and forcing me to relearn where things are located.

justice:
Desktop apps will come back as soon as they learned their lessons from web apps.
Instant gratification of web-apps will hopefully encourage desktop apps to come to the point without installation, splash screen, registration code, welcome box, preference setting, file management, menu systems, context menu crapification. Maybe they'll become task based and maybe even the os will become task-group based to facilitate the software ecosystem instead of just providing for the helper tools. Windows Server's role-based framework I'm looking at you. Jees I need a break lol.

Rover:
History repeats itself again and again.  I have a computer magazine from 1970; it has an ad for a new mini computer that has integrated email, word processing and spreadsheet capabilities. Databases were things for the IT dept. then.  Apple introduced the "first" integrated office suite in the 1980's.  MS did it again a few years later.  What's new since 1970? Not much.

The PC sparked a "revolution" because "users" could write their own programs.  This was important since IT took so long to write anything and make it productive. Of course once we started depending on these "user" (distributed) applications, we had centralize them and make them work for the whole company, not just one dept.  If you've been around IT long, you've seen the constant expansion and contraction of IT resources; distribute, centralize, repeat.

The web is another example of this same process... with more pictures.

As far as MS (or anyone else) developing a Web OS (where the local OS is just a conduit to the Internet) I don't think it will work until you eliminate hackers and viruses.  What reasonable person would trust their personal and/or financial information to the a server living on the 'Net full time?  Not on today's Internet.

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