At OSBC last week I gave a Radar talk on current technology trends. The trend of moving traditional desktop applications to massively networked, Web 2.0 online applications like Google Docs is well-known. The problem is, a web browser is a terribly limited platform for application development, and JavaScript is a less-than-fully-featured language. There are inherent limitations to the kinds of applications you can develop and the kinds of user experiences you can offer in a web browser. Toolkits like Flash and Silverlight attempt to cram more functionality into a web browser, but they still can't offer the fully integrated desktop experience. Add in the fact that the nirvana of 100% connectivity at all times is far from a reality, even in the most technologically advanced parts of the world. This is a significant usability problem for the pure web browser applications, as anyone who has experienced the frequent forced coffee breaks by a Google Spreadsheet "waiting to connect" can confirm.

The wave of the future is not web browser applications. Instead we're coming full circle back to desktop applications, but this time we've broken the old idea of single user silo applications with no connection to the outside world.

Looking ahead to the next few years, one of the critical steps to making Linux a complete drop-in replacement for proprietary operating systems is filling in the last few missing desktop productivity applications: calendaring, contact management, project management tools, PDA/cell phone/laptop synchronization, etc.

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