--- On Thu, 7/9/09, ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> First, short term: cloud based apps suffer various
> limitations that are a natural result of their lack of
> access to all local resources as well as their lack of a
> long UI development history. Regarding the latter, as one of
> the commentors on Fake Steve's blog noted, web apps today
> rely on the hideous kludge that is JavaScript + AJAX (not to
> forget, HTML/CSS). On top of that, Google has (IMHO) a poor
> track record when it comes to UI. And the assumption that
> near-real-time always-on Internet access is hardly
> justifiable.
>
> Second, long term: I am not at all sure that sacrificing
> all your data to a corporate entity, locked into their
> storage format and accessible via their application (albeit
> with some sort of "export" option) is NOT a regression. Open
> storage formats, separation of (a) application, (b) data,
> and (c) communication/protocol, was one of the greatest
> strengths of the model that some of these services (e.g:
> Gmail) are trying to replace.
>
[WS:] That may be true, but you are missing an obvious political aspect of the Google's move - a challenge to Micro$oft monopoly on the OS. This monopoly is analogous to all roads in the US being owned by one corporate entity having the power to dictate who can drive on them and how. This is the mother of all proprietary formats and protocols.
Breaking that monopoly has a value in itself, regardless of the technical merits or demerits of Google OS.
Wojtek