Towards an online desktop
Lets see what do we have so far:
* A [[http://writely.com|word processor]]
* An [[http://meebo.com/|instant messenger]]
* A [[http://tadalist.com|todo list]]
* A [[http://basecamphq.com|project manager]]
* A [[http://www.protopage.com/|generic scratchpad]]
* A [[http://bloglines.com/|RSS aggregator]]
* An [[http://kiko.com|online calendar]]
* Ofcourse [[http://gmail.com|email]]
* and [[http://del.icio.us|bookmarks]]
* and [[http://www.backbase.com/|many]], [[http://www.ajaxian.com/|many]], [[http://www.techcrunch.com/?cat=97|more]]
Now all we need is a good replacement for photoshop, powerpoint and excel and integrate them all together into a single portal (Yahoo? Google? M$? other takers?) and there you have — your online desktop!
Of course, easier said than done. But things are moving fast. Very fast.
Something that we contemplated while at Adode. Powerpoint & Excel are not that difficult. Anything with a DOM can easily work with this web based model. Now Photoshop is totally another ballgame. The issues are too many and personally I dont think it makes sense.
And then there are privacy issues. People would not store their financial statement on thew web, they WANT it on their computer. Period.
People *already* have financial statements on the web (banks, credit cards, yahoo finance). A lot of stuff in emails is much more private than financial statements and look at how people are embracing gmail. I’m not a fan of where things are going — all I’m saying is that the privacy issues are just a matter of time; people are already beginning to accept a secured, hosted data model.
I’m actually more interested in a complete suit on a USB stick, a portable office in a sense. Secure. (encrypted.) With all one’s files and cross platform / hardware compatibility. How does that sound?
And btw. Photoshop online? hell no … The ramifications are horrid, basicly impossible. :)
Cheers!
-Tim
Tim: there’s actually a lot of progress in this area. See:
* http://research.microsoft.com/research/sv/keychain/
* http://linuxgazette.net/113/kapil.html
There are more but I can’t remember.
As for Photoshop, I just threw it out there. It might be hard to do it today, but in a few years time, you never know.
Yeah you have Y! finance and all and people do store a lot of personal information on mails, but still that mostly refers to the tech savvy guys. We has done a survey and found out that people have no qualms about sharing personal mails etc, but they would prefer to store their medical records, bank statements etc. offline, becoz they think it is THEIR comps and hence more secure.
But then what Google is doing is pretty neat. I think somehow they are moving people towards the web, or rather intergrating both (web & desk) in a manner that a normal user wouldn’t know the difference.
Thanks Great Article.