Your desktop on any PC: the web application revolution

But data storage is just the first step - online Web applications are where the real revolution begins. Since around 2000, several companies around the world have been developing online, browser-based alternatives to mass-market productivity tools like Microsoft Office. The strongest challenge would appear to be from Google, who have quietly released their Google Docs and Spreadsheets tool - a very well-featured and intuitive online Word/Excel killer that lives in a browser window and is as simple and quick as everything else Google puts out - not to mention integrating very nicely with a range of other Google products. It stores all your documents, you can upload by emailing documents into it, and it supports group collaboration and version control. Oh, and it's free.

Microsoft have, as usual, been slow to move, preferring to let others do the trailblazing - their Office Live amounts to little more than online website building, document sharing and email. But if Google manages to bring web productivity applications into the public spotlight, we wouldn't expect Microsoft to be too far behind.

But what if you're offline?

One of the biggest passion-killers for moving to a web application model is the simple question of what happens when you can't get a net connection? A dumb terminal is just that when there's periods when it can't link in to its application server. You're locked out of documents and applications. But a solution's developing, again from the Google team, that could put this big issue to rest.

Google Gears is "an open source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline." Effectively, web apps designed to work with Google Gears will allow you to disconnect from the Web, taking a thin local copy of both the applications and their documents. You'll be able to work offline, then sync back to the master copies once you're reconnected. Gears will let web application developers offer a "best of both worlds" solution.

So what now?

So, ten or more years into the birth of the web application, where are we at? We've got some very strong and well-entrenched web apps like email clients, blog diaries, calendars, photo/video sharing and online backup socialized into the daily routines of millions. We've got common productivity applications starting to become a practical alternative to the monolithic client-side apps. We've got online games that don't require any local software becoming very common, and we've got a benign industry giant like Google putting a lot of eggs in the web-app basket.

Some things might take decades to be ready to go online - processor, graphics and memory-intensive apps like 3D modelling and design software would appear to be out of reach in the short term. But the inherent advantages - particularly the ability to charge flexibly, maintain a single version and greatly limit piracy - will surely see the major software companies putting more and more effort into this space. And as mobile technology and broadband speed keeps improving out of sight, consumer demand is sure to be there too.