The future of the desktop?

Google has recently unveiled their new Google Apps Premier Edition for offices and there has been a lot of buzz around it. Will web applications replace desktop applications? Is the "fat client" useless?

It's an interesting idea, and as a web application developer, it could mean huge things for me. I don't think, however, that we're going to see web applications really take over and completely replace hard-drive installed desktop applications. I think there are some applications which could exist just fine run completely as web apps, but I think there are a lot of applications which have the potential or will become hybrids which exist accessibly both "virtually" over the web and also on your desktop.

Convergence is the what I'd like to see. A seemless transition between the desktop office computer and my cellular web PDA or my microlaptop. While efforts like Google's take the pipedream of an integrated virtual office and make it a reality; their apps, outside of Gmail, really aren't available anywhere but on a conventional computer.

This is where I think platforms like Flex/Apollo and OpenLaszlo/Orbit are going to shine. Minor differences aside, Flex/Apollo and OpenLaszlo/Orbit are essentially the same and I wouldn't be surprised if eventually their formats become interchangable. Flex/Apollo will allow us to push to the desktop quickly and also straight to the web as well. There's the same sort of convergence that Google Apps is providing. OpenLaszlo has partnered with Sun's Orbit to push to J2ME, which most cellphones (especially the beefier PDAs and smartphones) can handle, not to mention that if you're careful, some Laszlo projects are running in FlashLite 2, as well.

With such platform independence, these systems are going to open up myriad possibilities for convergence applications.

So while I think Google Apps Premier Edition (or even just Google Apps) looks great and might stand a chance at challenging long-time desktop alternatives like Microsoft Office; I think that ultimately, Google hasn't gone far enough to make these processes truly convergent.