Daniel Jalkut makes the best case yet as to why desktop applications are here to stay and why web
applications, almost by definition, will always play catch up with desktop apps:
When something truly innovating and mind-blowing happens on the web,
I can drop it into a WebView on my Mac and make it a part of
my desktop experience.
When something mind-blowing happens on the desktop, you can bet you’ll have people scurrying to painstakingly im itate
it on the web.
…I imagine in 5 or 10 years the web will have caught up to something resembling how desk
tops behave today.
But I can’t even begin to imagine what we’ ll have at our fingertips on the desktop, by then.
iPad? We ain’t seen nothing yet.

Web apps have their place for sure, but desktop apps will always be
the ones passing the baton to web apps.
I knew this by intuition but I’m grateful to Daniel for articulating it as only he can.
In the past, I have alluded to project Luceen, a new product that we’re just starting to work on.
I have discussed this product with only two or three people outside the company, and the inevitable question was akin to “why are you doing it as a desktop app? don’t you see your competitors are going web-based?”
I will be giving them the link to Daniel’ s po
st if they ask again.

