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Google vs. Microsoft On the Desktop
Michael_Curator writes "Gary Edwards, president of the now-defunct Open Document Foundation, helps sort out the challenges Google faces displacing Microsoft on the desktop, pitting the strengths of Microsoft's proprietary stack against the developer candy that HTML 5 represents."
HTML is just another layer of abstraction. It could just as well be Java, or .NET CLR, or cross-compiled C++ (GIMP). There is nothing amazing about applications in a browser, it is not necessary, and while it is convenient at times (at a computer that is not your own), when available a native code app will usually do the same job but "better".
As far as syncing, there is nothing stopping native apps from syncing to "the cloud". In fact, there is the Outlook Connector for Windows Live Mail and the Office Live tool for Word XP, 2003, and 2007. Also see IMAP and POP3. Oh, basically anything that doesn't go over port 80.
Browser is not a necessity for productivity. Handy in cases, yes. Disclosure: I'm currently interning at MS.
But Microsoft people have a good point about the cloud. Forget speed, think about reliability. And by reliability of the cloud, I actually mean reliability of your internet connection.
I think it will be a long time before the internet/cloud can compete with local internal storage. So for Google to compete, cloud features are an awesome additional feature, but to really succeed, I think they need to be able to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft on the desktop without requiring an internet connection.
Microsoft actually contributed lots to HTML 5, at least according to Chris Wilson (Software Architect for IE)
In effect, it's like semi-Microsoft v. completely-Microsoft. (food for thought)
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It really is 'the cloud' though; face it, if you save to google you're saving to a cluster. You have no idea where your data is and you don't care. To say you're saving it to a server is a bit disingenuous. You might as well just draw the good old cloud and lightning bolt ala the network diagrams of old and leave it at that, in most situations.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I am a commercial software developer.
Think about it. Who generally has the expertise and trust of management to make such decisions? If developers don't have the most input they certainly do have a say that holds influence.
'developer candy' can also be translated to 'lower barrier to entry' (cheaper programmers), 'faster ROI' (faster development for experienced programmers) and 'inherently higher quality' (larger cookie-cutter components)
What do you think developers enjoy working with? Inconsistent rickety unstable messes?
Getting rid of stupid clients would be godsent for any admin in the world. Having all applications in the browser would be a huge step forward.
You try, getting three different clients working against a database from the same vendor working properly. They all crave different versions of dotnet, java or whatnot and any new version of the client software demands countless hours of testing just about every possible combination of apps. Upgrades are pure nightmare. Couple this with locked down desktops, profiles that has to be managed and policies that needs hard testing before you alter a single setting.
Getting rid of all those problems alone would be worth serious money for any company. Added benefit would be that backend services would be totally decoupled from what OS the client runs. Microsoft will fight this for all they are worth.
HTTP/1.1 400
IE 6 remains a major target that needs to be covered
No, it doesn't. IE 6 is a ghetto, and can be safely ignored. Anyone who currently uses IE 6 and either will not or can not upgrade to a modern browser is someone who isn't terribly concerned about using the types of apps that things like HTML 5 and Gears are meant to make possible.
Actually even my 67 year old clueless dad has a USB external with one touch backup. Those things are really dirt cheap now and most folks have been burnt at least once in the past and are naturally a little spooked about losing all their stuff.
Which kinda spooks me about this whole "push to the cloud" thing. Not only do you have the whole privacy issue, because you have no idea who is looking at your data, but lets be honest here, even Google has occasionally just went "oops, sorry about that" when it has come to folks data. I know I have Gmail go offline for a day or two at a time, and what if one of those days I had been on the road and having that data was "mission critical" for a job? And look at how many "web 2.0" style companies we have had go tits up in the past couple of years, and with the economy like this I would expect to see plenty more. When a company is struggling, which you may not even have a clue about, the odds that they are going to spend the money to do best data backup practices is virtually nil. Then what happens when the server dies, or the drive that contained your data goes tits up? "Ooops, sorry about that" as most of these companies have it in their TOS that they pretty much ain't responsible for jack.
So no thanks. I can slap a cheap USB drive and back up my data anytime. I even have my data partitioned to where I can back up all the important stuff to DVD without having to back up the whole OS. I can encrypt the backups so nobody can use them but me, slap the USB or DVDs in my laptop bag and have them wherever I go, even if the place I end up at has "10k on a good day" dialup, which you'd be surprised how many places in the USA are still like that. So I think I'll just stick with what works no matter how good or poor a net connection I have tomorrow is, or without having to worry about whether or not the cloud company is doing well financially or using best backup and privacy practices. Call me weird but I like being in control of my data, thanks ever so much anyway.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
***You try, getting three different clients working against a database from the same vendor working properly. They all crave different versions of dotnet, java or whatnot and any new version of the client software demands countless hours of testing just about every possible combination of apps.***
Thanks, no. Been there. Done That. You're right. It is a nightmare.
But I'm curious why you think, as you apparently do, that switching to "the cloud" is going to be better. From where I sit, "the cloud" looks like a huge glob of poison gas. More standards than anyone can keep track of. But no one complies with them anyway. No discipline. Very little common sense. I suspect where the cloud is headed is a worse shambles than the current desktop plus latency and bandwidth problems. And security ... what security? Do people seriously think that "Never run as root" is going to prevent the ongoing security disaster?
Fortunately, I am retired and no longer have to make a living fighting with computers. I have a lot of sympathy for those who are not as lucky. Fasten those seatbelts folks, the next couple of decades are going to be one bumpy ride.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
People say this a lot, but it mystifies me. The cloud is empirically much more reliable than internal storage; hard drives crash all the time and lose *all* their data. Unless you're running a RAID and doing daily offsite backups your data is safer in the cloud because they do it for you.
What does RAID have to do with it? Regular backups have always been important, and my internet connection drops more often than my harddrive. Local storage means you're not dependent on internet connections, online storage means you can more easily access it from different locations. That's what the trade-off is here.
Nobody I know has ever lost any data stored on GMail, Flickr, or similar. The worst that I've ever seen happen is someone might not be able to log in for a few hours; maybe up to a day in an extreme case.
And that can be a big problem if you've got a big company working on something important. I've seen companies twiddle their thumbs all day because internet was down. Making yourself even more dependent on that doesn't sound like a step towards reliability.
On the other hand, practically everyone I know has experienced a hard drive crash, sometimes losing valuable data forever,
Then they should have backed up their data.