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Will AJAX Threaten Windows Desktop?
prostoalex writes "They are not your father's HTML pages anymore. AJAX interfaces are getting more complex and versatile, relieving the user of the necessity to reload the page, and thus are becoming more like your average desktop apps. The catch? AJAX apps work in any browser out there, making the OS layer a bit irrelevant. Will the trend threaten Microsoft desktop near-monopoly? Or are we hearing the story of poorly debugged device drivers again?"
It wont be any enormous instant change. But it will be a very slow methodical one. I notice that many companies are developing more and more web applications rather than buying expensive proprietary software. As companies break free of the proprietary software on their own, they will be more open to alternative OS and hardware solutions. All it takes is one salesman to go in to such a company and win them over.
AJAX helps because there was a set of desktop applications that could not formerly be made into equivalent web applications, but they now can be. You'll see MS take some losses over the years if the trend continues.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Another thing to note is that a full trend towards this, with the logical loss of not only a proprietary operating system, but a general-purpose OS of any kind on the client, could be a far more severe threat to user freedom than any "trusted computing by limiting access to ring 0" scheme...
If moving CPU cycles and storage on-line to big company's (compare how fast it takes to search all your emails in gmail and Microsoft outlook, and how much space is available and backed up), then i can see the demand for new, faster PCs for a lot of people to decline.
When that starts to happen, who needs the newest and latest OS, or even a PC anymore when you can do it on your WiMax enabled pda and opera.
Things like Ajax only help move this data off the PC on-line and reduce the need for both a OS and PC
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
They said the same thing about Java, right? Which is faster than web apps (even if you think it's slow compared to C) and has more access to the file system and it's resources.
The way to make the Desktop unimportant is to have cross-platform applications become the norm. Word processors especially, but also browsers, mail programs, etc. Only when the apps that average folks use every day can be found on every platform will the platform cease to be so crucial.
Okay, I'll feed the troll.
As a web developer, I'm currently focusing my AJAX development on our Intranet. It's safer in the sense that we have more control over the browser and it's less likely that people with odd browsers will complain. That's where most of the interest is at the moment. For example, a form builder that lets people drag and drop controls, update properties, and so on.
There's a reason why Google maps is so popular while Google Earth (a client/server app) isn't as much. Anyone with a modern browser can use Google maps, while Google Earth requires an install, the right OS, and more.
The along came things like microsoft Basic. The computer would boot into an interactive language environment. If you wanted an operating system, you wrote a program in the language that could do primitive reads of some storage device (paper tape, cassette and later 8" floppy), on that was a larger basic program that would do operating system commands like list the files on the tape/floppy and allow you to copy them.
then along came DOS. While mini computers (like vax and prime and wang) had had OS's for years these were new to Mini computers. now the computer booted to the OS and if you wanted to program you had to load BASIC or fortran to create a programming environment.
Then along came the PC. suddenly there was this thing call the BIOS that normalized a lot of hardware kinds to a more uniform hardware API. And there were these device drivers that patched the OS.
THe OS slowly became more layered in design but that was transparent to the user.
the next big leap were browsers and quickly JAVA, which were touted as a normalizing layer over the OS to make machines more common at a higher level of abstraction above the OS.
Everyone thought webapps would rule. Never happened.
Maybe it was just too soon. Or maybe it's because MS torpedoed JAVA's cross platform success.
Now were seeing the rise of Javascript and XML. A few years back that would have been a joke. But I guess computers hand interpreters and high speed internet have gotten fast enough now that you can do slick things Google maps. Fast enough for simple common operations like Calendars, editors, spreadsheets and what-not.
my own feeling is the interface itself is still pretty crude. I'd rather run local apps. On the other hand if I were a corporation I'd probably tell my employees they dont need a faincy calendar or editor they need a siimple one we can maintain on a server.
So my feeling is that for the most part this is just another layer on a rather large stack of layers. and probably the slowest one yet. It offers little improvement to the user but does simplify maintainence and offers attractive corporate benefits.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The main reason the internet caught on is because it had a consistant UI that everyone, even non-computers users, could use.
- All links worked the same way and had the same right click menu.
- The back button could get you back if you get lost
- You could bookmark what you're interested in.
With showcase AJAX applications from leading software vendors all of this is broken. I can't bookmark. I can't use the back button (I remember when only porn sites used to do this - and now Microsoft sinks so low?). I can't use my right-click menus that I know.AJAX combines all the inconsistancies and learning curves of desktop applications with all the limitations (bandwidth, limited access to local storage) of the web.
Please make it stop.