Eugueny Kontsevoy - Web vs Desktop Nonsense:

"If a web application does not really need to run inside the browser, why does everybody expect Microsoft to ship an online version of their popular Office suite in the fashion similar to Google Docs? Technically speaking, to release a viable web version of Office they may just add an HTTP storage support with basic collaboration features into Word and Excel. Such product would run only on Windows and Macs which makes it similar to the web version of QuickBooks.

Can we see past the browser? Can we accept that browser is just a runtime library that most people do not need to download to consume your application? If so, then rendering Google Docs obsolete should be as simple as picking a more powerful platform to develop for.

[...] I want a real web-platform to build on. Google docs and Zoho Apps are a joke - their "word processors" are weaker than WordPad, which appeared in Windows 95 and had always been nothing more than a "toy editor" ever since. Now you stick THAT into a browser and declare it an Office killer just because I can access my primitively formatted documents from anywhere? Come on, the "anywhere" part should not come at expense of losing 90% of other features."

(via chromatic - The Magic of Web Apps is HTTP, Not the Browser)