Google vs. Microsoft On the Desktop 222
Michael_Curator writes "Gary Edwards, president of the now-defunct Open Document Foundation, helps sort out the challenges Google faces displacing Microsoft on the desktop, pitting the strengths of Microsoft's proprietary stack against the developer candy that HTML 5 represents."
Take away the cloud (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
HTML is just another layer of abstraction. It could just as well be Java, or .NET CLR, or cross-compiled C++ (GIMP). There is nothing amazing about applications in a browser, it is not necessary, and while it is convenient at times (at a computer that is not your own), when available a native code app will usually do the same job but "better".
As far as syncing, there is nothing stopping native apps from syncing to "the cloud". In fact, there is the Outlook Connector for Windows Live Mail and the Office Live tool for Word XP, 2003, and 2007. Also see IMAP and POP3. Oh, basically anything that doesn't go over port 80.
Browser is not a necessity for productivity. Handy in cases, yes. Disclosure: I'm currently interning at MS.
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting rid of stupid clients would be godsent for any admin in the world. Having all applications in the browser would be a huge step forward.
You try, getting three different clients working against a database from the same vendor working properly. They all crave different versions of dotnet, java or whatnot and any new version of the client software demands countless hours of testing just about every possible combination of apps. Upgrades are pure nightmare. Couple this with locked down desktops, profiles that has to be managed and policies that needs hard testing before you alter a single setting.
Getting rid of all those problems alone would be worth serious money for any company. Added benefit would be that backend services would be totally decoupled from what OS the client runs. Microsoft will fight this for all they are worth.
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
***You try, getting three different clients working against a database from the same vendor working properly. They all crave different versions of dotnet, java or whatnot and any new version of the client software demands countless hours of testing just about every possible combination of apps.***
Thanks, no. Been there. Done That. You're right. It is a nightmare.
But I'm curious why you think, as you apparently do, that switching to "the cloud" is going to be better. From where I sit, "the cloud" looks like a huge glob of poison gas. More standards than anyone can keep track of. But no one complies with them anyway. No discipline. Very little common sense. I suspect where the cloud is headed is a worse shambles than the current desktop plus latency and bandwidth problems. And security ... what security? Do people seriously think that "Never run as root" is going to prevent the ongoing security disaster?
Fortunately, I am retired and no longer have to make a living fighting with computers. I have a lot of sympathy for those who are not as lucky. Fasten those seatbelts folks, the next couple of decades are going to be one bumpy ride.
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:4, Informative)
The cloud is the new THIN client. The browser is the new OS for said thin client.
while different browsers do implement things differently, there is a standards running the whole show and an approval process. previous thin clients were proprietary in one form or another.
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What is with all of you suggesting "the cloud - the cloud - the cloud" all the time. I don't trust you. Why should I? Why should I trust my colleague who wants to borrow my 16Gb flash drive because his doesn't have space, with my "classified" company information that I store on it? And now everyone's suggesting "the cloud - the cloud - the cloud" with GoogleDocs and OpenIDs.
The cloud is NOT secure. Heck, not even passworded PDFs and DOCs are secure - forget about uploading it onto someone ELSES server and *
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Surely you must have meant to say "... huge step forward for admins".
What many (most?) application developers forget is that applications exist to make end users more productive, not admins, and there are precious few web based apps that are better than their desktop counterparts.
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:5, Funny)
Getting rid of stupid clients would be godsent for any admin in the world. Having all applications in the browser would be a huge step forward.
You try, getting three different clients working against a database from the same vendor working properly. They all crave different versions of dotnet, java or whatnot and any new version of the client software demands countless hours of testing just about every possible combination of apps. Upgrades are pure nightmare. Couple this with locked down desktops, profiles that has to be managed and policies that needs hard testing before you alter a single setting.
Getting rid of all those problems alone would be worth serious money for any company. Added benefit would be that backend services would be totally decoupled from what OS the client runs. Microsoft will fight this for all they are worth.
Getting rid of stupid houses would be a godsend for any contractor in the world. Having all people inside a mud hut would be a huge step forward.
You try getting three different walls working against the same roof from the same floor working properly. They all crave different stud layout, nails or whatnot and any new wall demands countless hours of planning for just about every possible combination of other walls. Electrical is a pure nightmare. Couple this with locked doors, surfaces that need to be painted and building codes that need hard testing before you can finish a single room.
Getting rid of all those problems alone would be worth serious money for any construction company. Added benefit would be that the extension cord used to steal electricity from neigbors would be totally decoupled from the type of mud hut. Legacy housebuilders will fight this for all they are worth.
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Getting rid of browser clients would be godsent for any admin in the world. Having all applications as a native application would be a huge step forward.
You try, getting three different web browsers working against a site using the same HTML/CSS/Javascript working properly. They all crave different versions of styles, scripts, tags or whatnot and any new version of any of the major browsers demands countless hours of testing for just about every possible combination of apps. Upgrades are pure nightmare. Cou
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You're interning at MSFT? Or internalizing? Both?
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The reason that web applications have an advantage is primarily the platform on which they sit. They're compatible with all operating systems, portable, simple to build, and really
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that's why Microsoft does not like it. They must play here but like with MS-OOXML, they will do anything and everything they can to somehow tie it to Windows, to one software environment. After all, their profits and growth come from Windows and without Windows, they house falls down.
LoB
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Yeah, right until "Your browser is not supported."
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There is nothing amazing about applications in a browser, it is not necessary, and while it is convenient at times (at a computer that is not your own), when available a native code app will usually do the same job but "better".
I think you already know this, but it's not about doing it better: It's about ubiquity.
While I agree it's another "layer of abstraction", the point of using a browser is access from anywhere / anything. Whether it's a desktop, netbook, phone, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, CISC, RISC etc.. you can potentially run whatever it is and have the same exact same experience on any platform. That's pretty cool.
By using native applications, you just don't get that ubiquity. People also want stuff that just works... Us
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With the idea of native apps not being practical for the purpose of ubiquity, one would probably point to cross-platform frameworks, like Java or GTK. That's fine and good, but these things require some "coaxing", if you will, especially in the UI department. A really simple app might be work just fine, but you have to be careful about using OS-specific functions and more complex programs sometimes need to be changed substantially. Applications that use web browser technologies don't really suffer from this.
Sigh, it happens too often that people say "you have this problem with (C|C++|C#|GTK|Qt|$YOUR_FAVORITE_LANGUAGE)+ and Java".
Java has webstart since 1.4 (2001) which uses JNLP (Java Network Launching Protocol ). From the desktop user's point of view.
WS automatically downloads new versions of the software, checks java versions etc. If you want to see it work and you have Java installed (>=1.4) you can try these Java 3D examples [java.net] to see how the experience is.
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:4, Informative)
1) From a firefox user's PoV - it looks like "Opening a Program from a Website" which is what everyone keeps yelling at them NOT to do.
2) It took me more than 5 minutes to download a simple program that just draws 3D spheres (from your link). Yeah I have a crappy connection, but I doubt "corporate" java apps are going to be small (and I've seen them being updated every few weeks - which means everyone has to redownload). They're fine over the LAN, but this Cloud thing...
FWIW, I've tried the 4K java game stuff and many are great (and download quickly), but there are very few java programmers who can and will do that for "office/corporate apps".
Correction... (Score:4, Informative)
And IE doesn't do that prompting, whereas Firefox does (at least on my setup).
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I'm all for java or webapplications, but that is where it crossed the line for me. Not to mention the prompt in firefox.
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[...]but I doubt "corporate" java apps are going to be small[...]
I would think that in a corporate environment, that would not be such a big issue.
Now, I'm not advocating to use ws/jnlp for everything, but for complicated graphical tools, why not? It's an alternative.
Oh... looks like the 5 minutes was to download a new version of Java or something.
I think that's a good point, one more deployment issue out of the way...
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Of course I should probably use Google docs more, but my night job is teaching Office 2007, which means having to get used to all the changes they made since XP.
Integration plugins would be nice, however. I am currently using ftp to sync the different systems, and would like something simpler.
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:4, Interesting)
You are of course right in theory; But this is a typical case that "in theory theory is the same as practice; in practice things are different". HTML has somehow managed to get the right balance to be much better than other applications. Primarily, there are no viruses written in HTML and HTML+Java(ECMA)script has almost no practical viruses.
The key advantages of HTML / ECMAscript / HTTP include
Every other option has serious drawbacks
Disclosure: I'm currently interning at MS.
your honesty is appreciated. When you are just starting in the job market, any good job seems like a good idea. Please remember you have years and years of work, ahead. Taking ethical choices is a seriously good idea. When your CEO is threatening your president with firing you [dailytech.com] then you seriously should consider if that's a company you want to work for.
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As far as syncing, there is nothing stopping native apps from syncing to "the cloud".
Except common sense, of course. I, for one, tell the new corporate overlords to stay out of my computer.
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native code might sometimes be optimal but guess what? A heck of a lot is good enough in a browser and that means it runs on nearly every device and not just the ones with the Windows logo on them. Look what happened to the netbooks when Windows got ahold of them. They got fat, they got shorter battery lives and they got more expensive. The OLPC XO is another example, Windows doesn't fit on everything but the browser does. Good enough.
LoB
Collaboration (Score:4, Insightful)
If the cloud would only be about data storage there would be no advantage over a Desktop app that saves to my hard drive.
However, Desktop Software is totally behind when it comes to collaboration. I have sent enough "DOCs" around and received them back and edited them again and sent them around again to understand that it sucks badly. I have enough of "can you send me the latest version of ..." and welcome online apps to solve this gigantic and ridiculous problem. Of course i would prefer to have Desktop apps that do the same thing, but as it seems at the moment nobody can get their act together and do real time collaborative Editing in a way that is more meaningful than Gobby. :)
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It's a shame you had to mar the good points you made with an uninformed comment about CSS and Javascript. Done properly, they are both powerful and, yes, elegant tools.
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it will be a long time before the internet/cloud can compete with local internal storage. So for Google to compete, cloud features are an awesome additional feature, but to really succeed, I think they need to be able to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft on the desktop without requiring an internet connection.
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Google have already started to tackle this one [google.com].
Although it's got to be difficult to mirror all of the application logic offline, the Gears apps that I've used thus far make a valiant attempt, and seem to preserve the core functionality.
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I think it will be a long time before the internet/cloud can compete with local internal storage.
Yeah, tell that to the email clients...
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But Microsoft people have a good point about the cloud. Forget speed, think about reliability. And by reliability of the cloud, I actually mean reliability of your internet connection. I think it will be a long time before the internet/cloud can compete with local internal storage. So for Google to compete, cloud features are an awesome additional feature, but to really succeed, I think they need to be able to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft on the desktop without requiring an internet connection.
Google Gears pretty much takes care of the flaky connection problem. Keep a local cache, and sync everything when the Net connection comes back up.
I would love to see Google Docs incorporated into OOo. I've tried an OOo plugin before that was supposed to save to and open from Google Docs...don't remember the name of it, but it kinda sucked anyway. Some enterprising Google engineer could probably whip up a solution in their 20% time, but I'd really love to see it as an official project.
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
People say this a lot, but it mystifies me. The cloud is empirically much more reliable than internal storage; hard drives crash all the time and lose *all* their data. Unless you're running a RAID and doing daily offsite backups your data is safer in the cloud because they do it for you.
What does RAID have to do with it? Regular backups have always been important, and my internet connection drops more often than my harddrive. Local storage means you're not dependent on internet connections, online storage means you can more easily access it from different locations. That's what the trade-off is here.
Nobody I know has ever lost any data stored on GMail, Flickr, or similar. The worst that I've ever seen happen is someone might not be able to log in for a few hours; maybe up to a day in an extreme case.
And that can be a big problem if you've got a big company working on something important. I've seen companies twiddle their thumbs all day because internet was down. Making yourself even more dependent on that doesn't sound like a step towards reliability.
On the other hand, practically everyone I know has experienced a hard drive crash, sometimes losing valuable data forever,
Then they should have backed up their data.
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While true that harddisks fail rarely (except from pretty much all 160Gig HDs I have owned, even from different brands), a failed harddisk will bring you down hard. An internet connection that goes down? That's as much work as reconnecting.... Many modern routers even do that for you if they sense a disconnection.
I'm not talking about a dialup line that's dropped. I'm talking about a corporate ISP that's crap.
If your internet connection is gone for a day, and all your documents are only stored online, then the entire company can't access the documents for a day. If the harddisk the documents are on crashes, you can restore them from backup, which usually takes quite a bit less than a day. And it also happens less often. Unless you have a redundant internet connection, but if that's the case, your file server is also
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Don't you think the problem is somewhere else? Like having a crap corporate ISP?
Maybe, but it still happens. Servers can go down, even big ones. Even gmail has had its problems. Relying on 100% uptime from outsiders is an invitation to disaster.
Apart from that, in a corporate setup, there should not be local storage at all. "My Documents" should be pointing to a network accessible share and those should have nightly backups and offsite backups.
That is exactly what I'm saying, and it's not the same thing as storing it on a third party server over a fourth party internet connection.
I was indeed thinking more of home users (dial-up, are you kidding me? Nobody uses dialup anymore... not on my continent).
You gave me a different impression with your comment about dropping internet connections that could quickly be restored. My experience with dropped internet connections is that usually something broke on the
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What I think would be best for Google would be to fork a version of OOo to include "Save to the cloud" support and integration with Google Docs.
"Save to the cloud"? Oh god, make the buzzing stop! You mean "add an option to OpenOffice to save your files to a remote server". Calling it "the cloud" is like calling the contents of your hard drive "cyberspace".
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is 'the cloud' though; face it, if you save to google you're saving to a cluster. You have no idea where your data is and you don't care. To say you're saving it to a server is a bit disingenuous. You might as well just draw the good old cloud and lightning bolt ala the network diagrams of old and leave it at that, in most situations.
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most people don't know what a server or cloud is. they don't even care. all they want is that they can find their documents.
i guess it will go like this: "if i store it on the cloud/server/whatever, it's not always there, but if i put it in 'My Documents', it's always available. so i'll store it on 'My Documents""
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And then their hard drive takes a gigantic shit and they learn the value of a multi-tiered approach.
On the other hand, always-on internet access is real for some people already.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would argue that your dad is not clueless. Do you know why he does this? I know: He got burned before and that's how he learned he got to make backups. Since he learned he is by definition not clueless
Give your old man some credit, okay?
Oh, and as for a final remark... People have only started doing this the last few years (only those that got burned before, mind you) Before ubiquitous cheap USB harddisks, backup si
Mod those hairy feet up!! (Score:2)
I seldom look to see if I have mod points - for this post, I looked. Saving to the cloud is all well and good, for convenience, I guess. But NOTHING beats the combined reliability and security of my own backups. When convenience takes a shit, that old reliable external drive is still sitting in the corner, or in the back seat, or under the airplane seat, whirring away, and waiting to go.
Yeah, I do save some things to Gspace. But I certainly wouldn't save anything like a confidential industrial secret do
In the best of all worlds... (Score:2)
I'd have a permanent historical archive of everything I ever created or edited. My archive would be physically accessible to me and my designates alone.
On an automated schedule, a complete backup copy of my archive would be stored on another physical device, again accessible only to me.
Some subset of my archive would be synchronized to a cloud service, so I could get to my data from anywhere. Some smaller subset of that would be publicly available so I could share.
Getting data into my archival stream woul
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Or you use DropBox [getdropbox.com] which seamlessly syncs your local data with the "cloud" and whatever other machines you have.
It's pretty sweet. Every photo of my kids I upload from a camera to my PC (OK, Mac) appears on the grandparents' PC (OK, that's a Mac too) shortly thereafter (Yes, I know I could just cron a unison job across a SSH tunnel to get a similar effect, but a) I'm too old for that crap and b) I want auto offsite backup).
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If your average person can't get access to their files because their internet connection is down... they just go do something else for a while. Your typical (or at least stereotypical) slashdotter should be able to find an alternative way to get internet access if the fi
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:4, Insightful)
The classic model where people only worked on and with local docs and programs is long gone for the newer generations, and without internet their 'computer is broken', since their facebook, favorite flash game, IM, email and home/search page all give weird error messages.
That, plus the benefits of always having your documents with you no matter what computer and operating system they are using or what location they are at, and the ability to collaborate, share and publish are pretty strong arguments against the local 'My Documents' type model.
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:4, Funny)
Dude the main thing is that people click on an icon that shows a diskette!
Re:Take away the cloud (Score:5, Interesting)
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"Save to remote server" ?
Personally I think that a end-user would be slightly confused by such mumbo jumbo, I mean, do you really know a lot of non-technies that know what a 'cervaaar' is?
If such an option were to be added, please let it be called "Save it to Google docs" :)
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If such an option were to be added, please let it be called "Save it to Google docs" :)
Yes please. We have enough mumbo jumbo, as you put it, without inventing new wannabe-cool terms for things.
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Re:Take away the cloud (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed, "Save to the cloud" should be renamed to "Vaporize".
Re:No, they want to make something /good/ (Score:2)
OOo is not a good starting place. They already have chrome + gears, which is more than enough to use google docs by itself.
The cloud is here (Score:2)
OOo has been able to 'save to the cloud' for a very, very long time. WevDAV was introduced many years ago, and works as well today as ever. It gives decent security, is quite reliable, and can be seen as a local drive on most modern OSs. (Sadly, even Windows Vista still needs NetDrive)
Bottom line: there is no need to NOT save to the cloud in basically any program out there today, client-based or no, if you are at least somewhat intelligent about it.
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Maybe. Who will claim the win when Android tops iPhone in 2012? RMS?
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Developer candy? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah developer candy is first on my list when looking at a product as an end user. I mean stuff security, reliability, etc. That's just all rubbish when I can make my developers even more diabetic.
Who comes up with this nonsense?
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You're talking about hobby development.
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Not just that. Many developers prefer being paid for fun stuff rather than for boring stuff. It's certainly how I pick my jobs.
Also, hobby development has actually gotten quite big over the last decade and a half.
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Fact is fella the end users don't decide on frameworks. And while sometimes decisions like that are made higher up often it is at the whim of a developer.
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You think for commercial software they decide what framework? You think in any environment other than hobby projects that the primary selection criteria is developer candy???
Re:Developer candy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a commercial software developer.
Think about it. Who generally has the expertise and trust of management to make such decisions? If developers don't have the most input they certainly do have a say that holds influence.
'developer candy' can also be translated to 'lower barrier to entry' (cheaper programmers), 'faster ROI' (faster development for experienced programmers) and 'inherently higher quality' (larger cookie-cutter components)
What do you think developers enjoy working with? Inconsistent rickety unstable messes?
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What you're describing is not developer Candy. Developer Candy is a neat new scripting language or plugin that does something "cool".
What you're describing is:
- The Rapid Application Development paradigm which was too hastily abandoned.
- Code stability/reliability/predictability.
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HTML5 is a new scripting language? Or a plugin that does something "cool"?
That's user candy fella.
I pretty clearly was not describing a paradigm, I was simply pointing out that things developers like tend towards faster development leading towards faster roi.
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HTML5 is a new scripting language? Or a plugin that does something "cool"?
Misrepresenting what I was saying in order to ridicule it is just weak. You know perfectly well I was giving examples of what I consider developer candy and that I was not saying HTML5 is a scripting language.
That's user candy fella.
An Eclipse plugin is user candy?
I pretty clearly was not describing a paradigm, I was simply pointing out that things developers like tend towards faster development leading towards faster roi.
You're not c
Here's what Google needs (Score:5, Interesting)
To give Microsoft something to seriously think about, Google needs an OS on the desktop. Android is a good start in my opinion. There are some efforts [arstechnica.com] in this direction already. The good thing is that Android eschews X, which is a pain to work with in its current form.
Next, they will need [meaningful] applications that work no matter what platform one happens to be using.
Third, targeting Microsoft must not be the aim, it must be the unplanned outcome. The aim must be tp "please" we the users.
That way, Google will succeed on the desktop.
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This:
Android eschews X
and this:
Third, targeting Microsoft must not be the aim, it must be the unplanned outcome. The aim must be tp "please" we the users.
Are the two most critical things that needs to happen for Linux to begin to take on significant market share. These are two of the biggest influences on the increasing success of Mac OS X.
Re:Here's what Google needs (Score:4, Insightful)
That's entirely missing the point. HTML5 gives you a very nice toolkit for building web apps allowing you full access to the computers computing resources with web workers (threads), storage and caching and graphics through canvas and even 3D graphics through O3D. The speed of the platform has also increased tremendously, in a year it's pretty much tripped thanks to FF3.5, Safari 4, Opera and Chrome. (and other goodies like location and no-plugin-required video playing)
The end result is that a web app can now approach a desktop app in features and speed, and with that you can finally stop worrying about what OS people run, that's becoming irrelevant, as long as they have a modern browser that supports HTML5, they can run your app. It also means that if you have a great idea, you can code it up and deploy it to everyone with a modern browser without having to ship a single CD or making a user go through a installation process
Forget about the OS, it's all about the apps! :)
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Forcing a feature into a standard to support your own proprietary application is shoddy.
Google Wave is open source, not proprietary.
Hate to be a spoilsport but (Score:5, Insightful)
In effect, it's like semi-Microsoft v. completely-Microsoft. (food for thought)
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Re:Hate to be a spoilsport but (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft actually contributed lots to HTML 5, at least according to Chris Wilson (Software Architect for IE)
Someone had to introduce problems, incompatibilities, and inconsistency or it wouldn't be a proper standard.
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I'm not sure what you're getting at. If the idea was W3C vs MS, you'd have a point, but this is Google vs MS. The fact that Google is using a tool that is being developed with help from MS is somewhat ironic, but doesn't make this a "semi-Microsoft v. completely-Microsoft" battle any more than the Japanese attacking China with gunpowder weapons is "semi-China v. completely-China".
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If only IE would support silly little things like the canvas and video tags, or have proper SVG support for that matter.
They have stated they intent to support HTML5, but I'm still waiting for this to actually take shape (hope they will!)
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Does HTML 5 away with meaningful DOCTYPEs? (Score:2)
Chris Wilson joined the HTML 5 working group (WHATWG) in April '07. Over one year, his sole contribution was that HTML versioning crap: ref. [diveintomark.org]
I just read that and the WG discussion it links to [w3.org], and from what I understand, Chris Wilson wants to maintain html version numbers in the doctype declaration, while others want to pretend html 5 is the only version of html in existence, which is completely stupid. I hate MS as much as the next guy, but Chris Wilson is completely correct here.
I haven't really been following the HTML 5 standard much so far, but I guess this means that HTML 5 has already done away with meaningful doctype declarations (which a
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Wow reading that sure ticked me off. Microsoft basically just said that they suck and cannot ever implement any spec correctly, therefore they need version tags in html.
From what I understand, they're just claiming HTML 5 is not the same as HTML 4 or HTML 3, and the document should identify which it's using. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me, and it has always been the standard so far. Doing away with it would be stupid.
Never thought I'd see the day where Microsoft is defending the importance of proper DOCTYPEs and the open source community is ignoring it.
Gary Edwards? (Score:5, Informative)
Hey, uh, wasn't he one of the ones that threw a tantrum (along with sam and marbux) when he didn't get his way with preserving Microsoft "dark matter" (undocumented RTF encoding) in ODF and then proclaimed that ODF is doomed to fail and all that nonsense when everyone told him to stuff it where it doesn't shine??
I am shocked. Simply shocked to see that he's extolling Microsoft's "virtues".
Nothing to see here, folks, just another softie trying to sabotage open standards by throwing chairs at it.
--
BMO
OS-less netbook (Score:2, Interesting)
- OutputLogic [outputlogic.com]
Desktop? (Score:2)
Where is the foundation on which you build? (Score:2)
Chrome. Safari. Firefox.
"The edge of the web."
God alone knows what that means. Market share dominated by the home user and the enthusiast. Chrome very immature.
Internet Explorer. The browser you use at work. Rich tools for deployment and management by the system administrator...
In the simplest terms:
You can build a business ground up from the loading dock and point of sale to the clerks in accounting to the guys and gals in middle management and the executive suite and never leave the working environmen
Cloud vs Desktop? Aren't they the same? (Score:3, Interesting)
Amazingly we should side with... Microsoft! (Score:5, Interesting)
The standard desktop is better than Google desktop. Yes, everybody says, to put Google in a good light: "standard compliant" browsers, but that means nonstandard compliant mail, nonstandard everything else. We won't own software, we'll be always customers, dumb terminals, served from huge company's "clouds". Free software will be over, irrelevant. We won't be able to improve and modify our environment, we can't improve Gmail ourselves, there's no alternative/better/innnovative client for Gmail.
Economic forces are taking technology down a terrible path. The past is better: a world of protocols, servers and clients. A common neutral space...
The "portable" desktop, having your data everywhere should be solved by other means... I don't know, perhaps we should have personal servers, or at least we should contract personal servers from some kind of "personal server providers", which should be a standard and non-monopolistic thing. The "presence providers" envisioned by the XMPP protocol comes to mind...
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The standard desktop is better than Google desktop. Yes, everybody says, to put Google in a good light: "standard compliant" browsers, but that means nonstandard compliant mail, nonstandard everything else. We won't own software, we'll be always customers, dumb terminals, served from huge company's "clouds". Free software will be over, irrelevant. We won't be able to improve and modify our environment, we can't improve Gmail ourselves, there's no alternative/better/innnovative client for Gmail.
(emphasis mine)
The points in boldface are a reason to side with the Open Source community. Neither Google nor Microsoft is any help on these aspects. And IMHO Ubuntu and similar systems are already quite usable for most purposes.
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Perhaps this is where social networking sites will evolve to: service providers for our information. It wouldn't be that greater step for the facebooks and myspaces of the world to add a bunch of servers and rent space on them with interfaces that can interact with cloud services. After all, it seems that most people already have an account and use it in order to store various photos and information about themselves.
If the technology for interacting with the cloud is open and well documented it'd make sure
Astroturf from Gary Edwards (Score:3, Informative)
Gobboldygook (Score:2)
The Office game is almost over, OOO is good enough, and existing anti-trust, most recently in Russia increases the challenge.
AD and Exchange are currently coporate lock-ins and the Open Source community must look for its commercial partners, Google, IBM and Oracle to help fund drop-in replacements.
It is very unlikely that MS will get a lot of traction with a new proprietary program, especially outside the USA
Thanks for troll modding (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll give this much to Google (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is where it is today because it is the easiest OS for third parties to work with.
That's not even remotely true. I'm curious as to how you came to this conclusion? Are you simply comparing Windows with Linux (and most any other X11 based system)?
The reason for MS's success (specifically, with Windows) is due to developers targeting the dominant system, and Windows became the dominant system primarily through being installed on the overwhelming majority of PCs. None of this was based on being the most "developer-friendly".
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I pretty much pointed out that Linux/Unix/X11 aren't necessarily the best example when I wrote, "Are you simply comparing Windows with Linux (and most any other X11 based system)?"
That being said, I am curious what you do consider to be the most developer friendly system, particularly if you have experience in industry.
Presently, OS X is extremely easy to develop for. In the past (the context here, after all, is MS's success, so you have to look at what came before), both OS/2 and BeOS were supposed to have been fairly advanced from a developer point of view, as was Nextstep.
Even further back, comparing Macintosh System, AmigaOS, etc., with DOS
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You realize that preprocessor "orgy" happens anyways, just behind the scenes? And that if you used a proper IDE, you get the same "blinders" that MS-VS gives you?
And if that is your only complaint - the tools, then I challenge how you can call yourself a developer. Have you SEEN the Windows API? Now... thinking of that, have you seen glibc?
Please forgive me if I'm wrong, but from what you've given us, I'm hesitant to take anything you've said seriously.
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And the so called "blinders" that you can get out of the IDE's don't seem to actually work. My favorite was that
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That said, if you *are* interested in developing for Linux again in the future, give Qt a shot. QMake is by far easier than any of the things you've listed, and Qt Creator is a great IDE that uses qmake files as its native project files.
Come to think of it, you could do this under Windows also.
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Suddenly Microsoft looks super friendly.
More Automated Spam? (Score:4, Insightful)
This comment is way too similar in style to this other comment [slashdot.org]. I call shenanigans.
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Re:HTML 5 + Gears + GWT: resounding maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
IE 6 remains a major target that needs to be covered
No, it doesn't. IE 6 is a ghetto, and can be safely ignored. Anyone who currently uses IE 6 and either will not or can not upgrade to a modern browser is someone who isn't terribly concerned about using the types of apps that things like HTML 5 and Gears are meant to make possible.
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The problem is there are large companies locked into that piece of ****. It will cost them loads to move on from there.
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The corporate world is 90%+ wedded to IE, and much of it still stuck on IE6. (And it gets worse; one project I worked on last year had to work with an enterprise-wide "secure" deployment of an ancient, extra-buggy version of IE6 not seen outside of that company; we ended up losing much of the AJAX bells and whistles.) I'm told that this is because one thing Microsoft do better is remote administration of large enterprise-wide setups.
Which means that, unless there is a paradigm shift in the corporate culture
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