05 February 2008

Smarter Applications : Part 1

Infrastructure is being reduced to a commodity. The network is a commodity. The operating system has now been comoditized. Applications are next. Specifically, server side applications. Why? Because it's easy to run server side applictions. They are zero foot print, scalable and cross platform - very compelling reasons. Also, with the help of the latest generation of application frameworks, it's easy, quick and inexpensive.

Once we have our key applications on the web, I think the desktop will be the next to fall.

Why are we still designing applications using the GUI and the WYSIWYG, the same way we have been doing for the past 25 years? Anyone who has actually used a modern word processor to create a document with embedded tables and images in it can tell you it's not because it works ( it doesnt ).

In a world where the browser is the personal computer, and storage and CPU resources are free and have essentially unlimited power there is probably a better way to develop software.

What will it be like when the desktop is irrelevant, computers are tiny and WiFi is ubiquitous? Hmm...