Remember when we used to download and install software? We do that rarely these days. Every tool that we need has also a web version, which is cooler and doesn’t have “virus alert” written all over it.
However, for many small businesses, it is still an inconvenience (more of a psychological one) to use a service hosted elsewhere. “They have my data!!”. And these people can’t install and manage the whole stack needed for running a small software locally. On the other hand writing desktop software is tedious (especially in Java). People want to build cool web apps, because that’s where innovation happens. All desktop applications have got in the past decade is a fancier default theme from the OS.
Fortunately, the innovation in the web front has now allowed us to build desktop applications as web pages. Sounds odd, I know, but I have already seen some tools (primarily monitoring and development tools, but it’s a start) that are purely html5 and javascript, and run in a browser. So instead of installing an exe file (“I swear, no viruses, checked by 3 companies you’ve never heard of, and it also might change your registry but don’t worry”), people can download an html file and double-click it. It will open in a browser, which is something they are familiar with. And it will do everything a regular application can do. Also, this type of software can be used as client to some UI-less services providing just APIs.
I am not talking about OS utilities, or low-level stuff here – just applications for personal finance, small business inventory, notebook, etc. Anything that would normally run with a small embedded database and a few screens with buttons and grids can now be written easily with javascript. Oh, and it’s going to be platform-independent.
Will we see an increase in the amount of html client software? Let’s see.
Remember when we used to download and install software? We do that rarely these days. Every tool that we need has also a web version, which is cooler and doesn’t have “virus alert” written all over it.
However, for many small businesses, it is still an inconvenience (more of a psychological one) to use a service hosted elsewhere. “They have my data!!”. And these people can’t install and manage the whole stack needed for running a small software locally. On the other hand writing desktop software is tedious (especially in Java). People want to build cool web apps, because that’s where innovation happens. All desktop applications have got in the past decade is a fancier default theme from the OS.
Fortunately, the innovation in the web front has now allowed us to build desktop applications as web pages. Sounds odd, I know, but I have already seen some tools (primarily monitoring and development tools, but it’s a start) that are purely html5 and javascript, and run in a browser. So instead of installing an exe file (“I swear, no viruses, checked by 3 companies you’ve never heard of, and it also might change your registry but don’t worry”), people can download an html file and double-click it. It will open in a browser, which is something they are familiar with. And it will do everything a regular application can do. Also, this type of software can be used as client to some UI-less services providing just APIs.
I am not talking about OS utilities, or low-level stuff here – just applications for personal finance, small business inventory, notebook, etc. Anything that would normally run with a small embedded database and a few screens with buttons and grids can now be written easily with javascript. Oh, and it’s going to be platform-independent.
Will we see an increase in the amount of html client software? Let’s see.
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