Hybrid Web- and Desktop-based App Plumbing
I keep reading in the buzz rags about how web-based (more specifically, ‘Web 2.0’) office productivity apps will kill MS by the end of next week. ZD has a list of a few of them, which is quite underwhelming.
I have several complaints about these apps, which I think partially reflect why MS still needn’t worry:
- They’re hosted. As much buzz as there is around ‘software as a service’, for individual users to trust their office docs to an unproven unprofitable start-up is quite a stretch. Remember all those intranet/project collaboration sites back in the New Economy (before Backpacker came along)? Hope you didn’t store anything important with ’em.
- They’re silos. Without an open API, your docs are locked into their service. That sucks. Even if the firm were stable and profitable, that still sucks.
- They’re web apps. As hard as it is to believe for the muni wifi set, there are still places on this planet without broadband internet access (like, say, commercial aircraft, though that’s changing gradually). If you need a ‘net connection to access your productivity app, then it’s not a very productive app.
- They’re desktop/laptop. At least Office docs have some degree of mobility in the form of Pocket Office apps and the myriad third-party translators and viewers. So, you can keep docs in sync w/ a PDA or smartphone. Not so here.
Don’t get me wrong; I like responsive AJAXy apps as much as anyone. I’d even like to see the emergence of web apps with a desktop feel. But what I’m averse to is a centralized, hosted, siloed model where the guys selling you the software-as-service also control your data.
What I’d rather see is something more decentralized and ad-hoc, with responsive web apps hosted primarily by a local web server (WEBrick for example), which would have full access to local peripherals. For on-the-go work, the same web app would be available from your own web host, under your control.
Established, decentralized comms protocols ala XMPP would enable information portability, under your terms, with some sort of federated identity management model. The ‘service’ would be third parties hosting the apps for you, providing storage, etc.
I’ve run through at least half a dozen iterations of this idea in my reflections on produtivity software, and each one seems a little closer to the mark than the last, but I can say with the utmost certainty that GOffice not there.