Rick, from my frame of reference - a developer serving the small-to-medium ERP market, your analysis of the situation is as good as any I've heard in a while.
Every time I venture into the browser world, I'm reminded how much more I can accomplish for my clients on the desktop with .NET.

From my perspective there seem to be huge holes in the browser world that need to be filled before browser-based apps can approach the functionality we can achieve for my market on the desktop.

Much of the fog surrounding this discourse comes from the fact that there is huge range of needs out there and the computing needs of a Fortune 100 client are light years away from those of a 50 employee manufacturer in Hamilton NJ.







>>When's the last time you've used a browser app for the desktop with local data to date? Reality is that if you run a local app you're expecting something better than the browser. Online apps are one thing, but if you use an offline app the expectations tend to be different In my honest opinion. If I go down the desktop path I want an app that integrates with the OS not some hacky Web view that's offline.

It's possible that an all HTML/JavaScript world will arrive sometime but currently it's not even a contender In my honest opinion. Html5 is pretty weak when it comes to providing real value. There's nothing there that changes anything drastically. All that stuff's been doable for years with add-ons, and now that HTML5 is on the horizon even the standards stuff is completely fragmented due to the wishy washy standards wording. Every vendor supports a different set of features. What makes good Web apps isn't HTML 5 but the use of the right thrird party libraries (or app specific wizards) that implement the User Interface properly (with all sorts of hacks).

I don't see that changing anytime soon.

And as I mentioned on the desktop Linux - besides all the noise the handful of users are making - is really a non-contender at the moment. Apple is more of a contender there, but given their insane Objective C focus and Apple toolset I don't see that as a contender either - and talk about lock-in there!

So where are we? Same as it's always been: Lots of choices for different platforms and no real panacea for one language to rule them all. But I'll take my chances with .NET because it runs on the widest range of stuff that I work with which is all Windows platforms from phone, to desktop, to server to the Web. I'm not even counting Mono because that's a fringe and one that I wouldn't invest in. If you're going to build to other platforms you gotta bite the bullet and learn to do it natively.

Still for .NET that's a pretty damn good range. Granted that leaves you out of the server room when *nix is asked for, but that's a choice I've made long ago...

+++ Rick ---