I’m a professional Excel VBA programmer, so I have a deep knowledge of Excel features, and I understand the utter terror with which a desktop programmer like me would view the demise of desktop apps.

But I also realize the many benefits of a web-based model for many applications. Let’s be honest– much of the software that corporations pay to have developed is redundant, and can be handled by existing, generic systems.

You might want to check out some of the web-based Excel and Word emulators now available. While these don’t quite achieve all the features and depth of the Microsoft products, they are impressively rich, and clearly the technology is maturing to the point of emulating any Microsoft feature. Zoho and ThinkFree, in particular, offer powerful features. Zoho includes web-based databases, slide-shows, conferencing, org planning, CRM, etc.

thinkfree.com
zoho.com
spreadsheets.google.com
docs.google.com
numsum.com
code.google.com/p/trimpath/wiki/TrimSpreadsheet
simple-groupware.de/demo/simple_spreadsheet/spreadsheet.php?lang=en

Thanks for the mention!

As you’ve mentioned I’m working with OpenLaszlo, which produces .swf files that run in the Flash player. And the only thing I worry about in regards to that platform is, what will Microsoft do with Windows Vista?

I don’t know if Win2k or Win98/Me included the Flash player, but Win XP did. That is obviously a MAJOR distribution method for the Flash player.

MS probably included it so the users of their browser didn’t have to download it when they hit a web site with a Flash intro (remember those? errr…. http://www.westgateresorts.com - management made us do it!). But now that Flash is more than a goofy ad-creator, will they feel threatened and retaliate?

Version 8 (soon to be released) of the Flash player looks to have some really cool features, and I’d hate for it’s adoption to be slowed because MS decides not to include it in Vista.

Thanks again for the mention!
-michael.

Here’s what gets overlooked:

There are millions and millions and millions of lines of code deployed,
right now, for internal IT applications both in gov’t and private sector using
Visual Basic, Power Builder and Java Swing. These things aren’t going away,
and they are being worked on my many more developers than work at Microsoft,
Apple or any other commercial software vendor. Remember how a good third of
all software that is developed is for the Department of Defense? Commercial
software is not the majority of software that gets written.
While Flash and DHTML certainly help make a web-app usable, you just
cannot ask people to do data entry on a web-app. It’s too damn slow, by
design. Add in the back button crap, the session-hacked-on-top-of-stateless
protocol, and it’s just never going to compete with a desktop app for
usability
Desktop integration is just not even close with a web-app. A web-app
can’t (easily) launch processes, access the local filesystem, or do any of the
other things a desktop app can do without jumping through major hurdles and
hacks.

So, are web-apps totally pointless? Obviously not. But, a web-apps main
(only?) advantage over desktop apps, ease of distribution, is not always the
primary concern in solving someone’s problem. Obviously, desktop apps have
their own issues, and problems they aren’t appropriate for solving. Both
architectures are valid and needed, and neither is likely to go away.

And come on, does anyone seriously think that a web-based version of
Excel is likely to ever be written, much less exceed what Excel can do?
And Word? Don’t even start on that one. Numerous open sourcers have been
plugging away morning noon and night and they still can’t make a bullet
list work right!

Personally, I think “RIA”s will excel at beating other web-apps. Yahoo Maps
was always OK, but Google Maps just crushes it. Yahoo Maps never sucked
enough to bother paying for/finding/downloading desktop mapping software.
Google closed the gap. That is what seems like the oppurtunity.

(BTW, rather than write this in the time-tested TEXTAREA, I’m using two
awesome desktop apps: MOZEX (pluging for firefox) and gVIM. Yeah!)

i think if Microsoft goes the route of upsetting everyone by changing the IE browser and thus breaking apps people love (like Google Maps), then more market share will be driven towards the oher browsers, like Mozilla. So this step by Microsoft may be counter-productive. Either way, Microsoft is losing their grip.