But nearly all of those things you mention *are* running on your local computer, even though the user generally thinks it's a web based application. Rich internet applications (Google's stuff doesn't really fit that category yet) are about client side code with a web deployment model. The only thing that changes is the installation experience. Consider a web based Skype client like you discussed. The only thing different between that and the one you download and install is that one is installed in Program Files and the other is installed in Temporary Internet Files and is confined to the client area of your browser. Both are really just client applications installed differently.

But anyhow, as I've predicted before (and it's coming true) the rush to the web is a short-lived extreme that will soon correct itself. As end users realize that it's not really "web apps" that we want, just more easily deployed apps, the client-side deployment technologies will improve and companies and users will realize "hey yeah it's pretty dumb that I'm using IE/Firefox to edit a spreadsheet when I could just click this ClickOnce link to easily get a real client application that even works offline."

Yeah, I do love meebo. I'm on it all day when I'm at the office. I love GMail too, I import all of my mail into GMail for much faster searching of my e-mails.

Josh, I disagree that web apps are a fad and that they're going to go away. The great thing about web apps is that they're multi-user and your data and settings are accessible no matter which computer you are on. This is a far cry from monolithic installs that rely on storing your settings and data separately on each PC. If anything regular applications are going to need to become more and more like web apps if they're going to stay relevant.

I have two issues with internetting -
The first is that I have no control over access to my data when it is stored in the cloud. The company hosting the service may go out of business (even Google!), or decide to get out of the business (I've been burned). I may need access to my data when I am not near WiFi (yes there are places where it is not accessable). I may be in a place that does not allow cell phones (or there is no signal).
The second is that I do not have control over who has access to my data. I have to trust the service provider. I have not seen any service that is willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Therefore I cannot use internetting for sensitive or proprietary information.
Given these two issues, I can only use internetting for non-serious use (and I do). They are interesting apps, but not for prime time business.
The internetting argument is being used to justify underpowered portable devices as more than lifestyle devices. I can agree IFF we are not talking about conducting business.

Hi Bjorn, I think you missed my point. Web apps are not going to go away entirely, but the shift to move everything towards them is going to reverse. It's not the first time in history this has happened. I'm sure you remember (or have heard of) mainframe computing, BBSes and terminal emulation, and "web 1.0". All of these things proclaimed the death of locally installed software yet in each case, the same thing happened - the client became fatter and fatter until the trend was reversed.

Don't believe me? What's the hottest thing in web development right now? Two years ago it was Ajax. And what is Ajax? It's hacking the web browser to behave more like client software by downloading all the presentation layer code onto the client. But this year it's RIA technologies like Flex and Silverlight. Both of these are just client applications living inside your web browser. The next version of Flex provides a downloadable/installable experience that several big players have already developed applications for. Microsoft already has a similar technology already released called ClickOnce that will see even more applications being deployed over the web but run on the client. It's just the circle of life. You can doubt it, but my predictions have already come true so far. In fact the shift back is happening even more quickly than I anticipated.

Chuck, privacy is a big concern but there are ways to encrypt your data and only use the web as a "dumb storage locker" which is where some of these "web apps" will wind up. As I mentioned above, the new RIA technologies are enabling the offline scenario with locally cached data. These apps would benefit from online storage and easy deployment, yet you would work with the data locally. So online, your OneNote documents for example could be encrypted with industrial grade encryption, but your client would download and locally cache the documents and decrypt them there.

This way the "web application" evolves more into an "internet application" (hence why they call it a Rich Internet Application and not a Rich Web Application.) The browser is horribly at these things which is why technologies like Microsoft ClickOnce, Adobe AIR, and Java FX will get the long overdue shift back to the client continuing. I don't know about you but I don't want to waste my Core 2 Quad on HTML rendering.

Internet is a basic service now but I do not think we can put everything on internet. We need put some private document on our private PC. For example, I am using a remote desktop service(http://www.gooer.com) to access my PC in my office/home via latptop or cell phone. Because I need use some local data that I do not want to put on internet.

Nice that you've touched a question on managing computers remotely from a mobile computer or PocketPC. Moreover, its even possible today to control the whole windows 2003 domain running hundreds of workstations! That's what I do with my AT&T Tilt (HTC) when I need to find out what happens to my domain, collect statistics from one of my server rigs or just help some of my users to resolve their problems. And that all I can do remotely from this tiny sweet device. I could only dream about that before. Sure, I do that using a third-party desktop management tool called Desktop Authority from Scriptlogic I am not saying I do that with basic functionality in Windows Mobile or Windows Server 2003. I remember when I first heard about NT5 in the mid of 1995 or so the borders drawn by Microsoft were quite blurred but by the end of 1996 we had already known quite precisely that "NT 5.0 will abolish that requirement with a system called Active Directory". And it looked fantastic those days even though we knew about Novell directory services that exited for ears before. Interesting thing those IDC predictions were quite right saying that 'with 1.5 million units, NT will surpass NetWare as the market leader for server shipments by the year 2000' But still I might have dreamed about what we have today as a reality. I didn't think Active Directory would allow us to do so much! Today I just type the address of my domain and log into any computer in my domain with Desktop Authority so that I can do anything I could do should I sit right on my workplace. Isn't it fantastic? That's what I love about IT technologies. Even though some of them became a flop some continue to grow up. Java and .NET are good example of such great technologies. Windows Mobile runs Java great. Even more, I can run Java on Symbian on my wife's Nokia and manage several computers at a time. When I say manage it is I can do any administrative specific operations on a remote computer like copy files from it on my local computer even when I am on my holidays sitting miles ahead from my workplace! I don't even need to call managers to help them to do something on their computer. I can just chat with them right from the Internet Explorer Mobile if I need. By the way there's a one more thing I would like to note here. People sometimes confuse the terms "remote control" and "remote management". Remote control usually implies that you just can connect to the remote session and manipulate this session remotely by redirecting a remote display picture on your local computer. Remote management however is a more smart technology that allows you not only see the remote desktop and control it locally with your mouse and keyboard but it also allows you perform administrative specific tasks like group policy update, performance monitoring and system health state and help remote users without interfering with their desktops preventing the connection to drop out if remote user logs off from his session. At least thats how I see it... Amazing how far we've come over the last decade! And this growth continues with each new second. I spend time managing my domain installing patches, managing security and processing software installations. I remember how hard it was on Windows 2000 Server. Situation has changed slightly with the release of Windows Server 2003 in April of 2003 but still Microsoft decided to strip the group policy management console down from the system and released it only in the mid of 2004. That however didn't help a lot since you were still required to do many things manually scripting automation with GPMC scripts of WMI scripts. That's where desktop management helped a lot. When I deployed the new version of Desktop Authority, I realized that not only can I distribute different software to the same user based on the information about his location, his environment and his hardware settings but I can deploy localized software automatically deploying patch or application with a specific language to that branch of my company that requires it! The IT world continues developing.