Are PC applications set to die out?

[Fabio Franco]

I think we are long ways from being 100% web because we still have a fundamental problem while reaching the web: The distance. Like it or not, best case scenario, data travels at the speed of light and they don't travel in a straight line. And distance means time for data traveling from one point to the other. Add to that band limitations on different locations (This is an infrastructure problem that can be solved). Desktop application can process everything locally, where distance is not a problem. The best example of applications that will be the last to move to the web (if they move at all), are the heavy 3D games. Imagine playing crysis and render heavy 3D frames on a browser or having 30 high quality images being downloaded in one second, using a remote data source: Completely nonviable for the near future. Since today's mid range desktops/laptops can handle most applications to make heavy processing locally very fast, many applications are not very suitable for the web. Having a powerful server farm to process heavy loads of data make sense on specific scenarios only. The great advantage of the web is the ability to host distributed applications that are easy to deploy for every user in a centralized way. But there are many applications that don't need to be distributed and as such, make more sense to stay local. I honestly don't see desktop applications vanish completely. But I do realize that this whole paradigm of desktop vs web apps might not even make sense in the future. It takes a lot of thinking to theorize what things might be 20 to 40 years from now.

"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson

[Fabio Franco]

Then, we'd still need a local interpreter that would be a PC app. I'd also want to see when running an application this way would work for apps like 3D Studio Max... I think we are long ways to go before that is even viable, let alone effective.

"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson

[Fabio Franco]

I think the end is as predictable as the Armageddon. If it ever occurs. I'm more into a new beginning, when none of this debate will even make sense.

"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson

[Gary Huck]

Yes, I remmember said machine. Are you implying the industry is headed in the same direction? Things have changed a heckuva lot since then.

[Chrisgo]

I do, in fact, think the age of the pc "app" is waning. With advances like HTML 5, I don't see the need for the kind of app that you have to physically install on your machine. I can see a model where an interpreter is downloaded and you can run the app and then kill all the processes associated.

[dpminusa]

Lots of impressive web apps and web services coming out with HTML5. This is not going to stop. As a developer I still prefer my notebook real estate and desktop apps. I have used some pretty impressive web tools to do simple projects with though. I suspect that the desktop apps will become less frequent and more special purpose over the next 10 years. Maybe something like the DOS to GUI shift. I still use DOS for some special purposes I don't have and app for. Some installation packages and other utilities still use DOS as components. Some types of users, especially in business/office settings, may be hard to accommodate. For example, accountants and clerks who still need to pound on the keys to be most productive. They will have to have a lot different concept of their jobs to accommodate a web app and touchscreens. I am still a bit of a skeptic on the shift to the cloud. This was tried before (in part at least) and was called ASP (Application Service Provider). It tanked after a couple of years of marketing hype. Some companies I know lost truckloads of cash over it. Previous to that it was called a Data Center. That tanked also. Maybe the cloud will succeed because it is built on better technology by smarter people and the users are more capable/conditioned to adopt it. The security vulnerabilities with the cloud are still poorly handled, IMO. There is a lot more work to do there before I will be recommending the cloud as a first choice to my users. Some new technology ideas are needed. I read of more and more hacking on anything that is mobile each day. For now I am treating the cloud as a vehicle for special purpose apps. For example, Sales Management, Support Management, and other less critical supporting systems. Maybe I am too conservative, but ...

"Courtesy is the product of a mature, disciplined mind ... ridicule is lack of the same - DPM"

[Lost User]

RichardS wrote:

Are PC applications set to die out?

I hear this question every year. It's based on the "idea" from "management" that things that are old are being replaced with something new.

RichardS wrote:

So are PC apps going to be a museum pieces soon?

No. Visual Studio 2012 and World of Warcraft will not run on your mobile phone. No, those aren't even related platforms, they only compete in the eyes of management. No, you cannot have Sql Server Express on your android. ..and no, the iPad isn't going to replace any thin-clients soon - just like the Elsa logboard didn't do that, ten years ago.

Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss:

[johnsalverda]

It depends on what the PC is being used for. We use the PC to monitor smog per appropriate federal and state regs. Cant have an Internet connection due to security, so cloud computing is out. An 'app' couldn't do this.

[Trajan McGill]

This is really two questions: 1) PC vs. mobile device 2) Cloud/web vs. local application The first is being transformed by the invention of much more useful, mobile devices. But the transformation is mostly being misunderstood, in my opinion. The shift is toward mobile devices because those make new things possible. What mobile devices do not do well, unless you count laptops, is the regular office work that most people spend a great deal of their time doing: Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc., or email or basically anything that involves much typing, or that could benefit from more monitor space. Which means the "Desktop PC is going away" theme in the news is silly. It is simply handing over a certain portion of its space, along with ceding some space that never existed before in the market, to mobile devices. Does this reduce the market size? Perhaps. Eliminate it or gut it entirely? No way. The second is at a really interesting spot right now, though I haven't seen anyone take note of it, because everyone tends to forget anything that happened more than 5 minutes ago. This is really just the latest iteration of a cycle that we've gone around many times already in the short time that computers have existed. ChromeOS is the same idea as the Java Computer is the same idea as the mainframe terminal. Local interface to a centralized computer. Every few years, as different pieces of of the technology ecosystem advance, and certain trends burn themselves out, "the future" shifts one year toward powerful clients, and then another back toward thin clients with a powerful server. That's because there are real, legitimate advantages to both ways of doing things, and people don't like thinking of a complex system of some things done one way and some things done another, everyone seems to like to think that there is some "one way" that is best for everything. Consider, in favor of localized applications: -Data privacy. -Speed of doing things locally rather than transmitting to a distant resource, and along with this the idea of not wasting the possibility of doing some processing locally. -No bottleneck of performance based on bandwidth. -Local control and configuration and customization. -Centralized servers are doing all of everyone's work and therefore need to scale to gigantic proportions, with the risk of not keeping up with demand. -No central point of large-scale failure: in the cloud, "my Excel isn't working right today" is replaced by "the whole country's spreadsheets aren't working today." -No dep

[Gordon Lincoln]

Larry Ellison and certain other control freaks would love to see the day. Total control of your desktop; when they read Orwell's 1984, they were rooting for Big Brother. Former attempts include the various attempts to sell the market on various 'thin clients' that attached to the servers. When I put on my IT hat, I can sympathize with the benefits of controlling those desktops so stupid users don't damage the data, crash their PC's, introduce conficker via their flash drives, etc. etc. As an information collector/broker, and sometimes security consultant - I think you must be out of your mind to 'trust' a server farm's underpaid personnel with your data. Yes, you 'could' implement your own 'in house cloud' and many enterprises are already doing that to one degree or another. The cash register at the fast food restaurant is an example. However - my personal data? You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. (to borrow a slogan from the NRA). Once you decide you don't want to share your data with a surprisingly large number of individuals who are purportedly trustworthy according to other people who offer smiling assurances about how carefully they screen their employees? At that point, the benefits of cloud and software as a service drop considerably. The data storage as a service makes a LOT more economic sense than software as a service. The data is everything. The software - it some ways, it doesn't matter whether it is downloaded (assuming an ultra-reliable, 24/7 available source)or locally installed. On the other hand, downloading and running the software as a run time event, where you don't install the software locally - makes updates easier, and provides a way to charge by the hour of use, control of licenses, that's the benefits. Otherwise, you are wasting bandwidth by having to haul that software over and over and over. Once again, it's all about control, who has it and who wants it? I like locally installed software and local data - I have control of my stuff, you have control of your stuff. That's the way *I LIKE IT*. YMMV

[Gary R Wheeler]

Microsoft Office.

Software Zen: delete this;