Will the browser become the OS?

In a word:
hogwash. In fact, I think the time is long overdue to file this .com-era
fallacy away next to "Super Bowl ads
are a great idea for startups", "drawing an audience is more important than
making a profit," and "people will totally buy dog food
online."

 

It seems that
every time a cool, new web app comes out,
the chorus of "boy, if they can do that, pretty soon we'll just be doing
everything in a web browser" starts up again. It's a cute thought, but
it really is so Flat Earth
Society. Despite overwhelming contrary evidence, some folks insist on clinging to the notion that one day we'll do everything in the
browser. It's a classic slippery slope argument: Because Web applications
are increasingly cool and functional and constantly becoming ever more rich and
more capable, we must logically be
able to conclude that they'll some day get to the point where the web replaces
traditional apps, right? Um, no.

 

In fact, the
preponderance of evidence suggests just the opposite. Hardware and
software innovations enable more and
more intelligence to be pushed to
network endpoints. Web PCs have thus far been a commercial failure.
Our reliance on the Internet grows while our use of the web as Chief Internet
Vehicle shrinks.

 

Intelligence at the
Endpoints

We're
progressing in a direction where every device is increasingly powerful, capable,
and connected. People and businesses
tend to prefer devices with more
processing power, more storage, more connectivity options, and more desirable
form factors. This is a trend that
shows no signs of reversing. Rather than a centralized web
client/server model, we are moving
inexorably toward a distributed computing world, where all network endpoints are all masters of their domain. Every device on
the network will be intelligent enough to do
serious computing for itself and have enough storage to work locally
with substantial amounts of data.

 

It requires very little rocket science to see that
wired and wireless data pipes will soon be ubiquitous, wide, and
fast. But while
connectivity may be king, but it will never be practical nor desirable
for 100% of devices will to remain connected 100% of the time. As a
result, people will continue to gravitate toward devices that can grab data from a variety of locations, work with it
online and offline, and synchronize data back to repositories. An
environment that forces full time connectivity is a productivity dog
leash.

 

The line of thinking that
dictates "some day, all PCs will be web terminals with nifty displays controlled
by brilliant servers in the cloud" ignores a fundamental reality: hardware is
getting better, smaller, and cheaper at a ridiculous pace. Dollar for
dollar, devices continue to get better. Given this reality, I have a lot
of trouble seeing the argument that this trend we'll suddenly stop and we'll all
decide that our hardware has gotten good enough, thanks, and we're ready to give
over our computing experiences to a web browser.

 

Remember the
NC?

Economics,
some argue, is what will drive this shift to the web PC. But this
argument, too, is unsupported by reality. The delta between in the cost to produce a "smart"
device and a "dumb" device is very small. In fact, it could be argued
that, in many cases, smart devices are cheaper to produce than dumb ones,
because of the economies of scale created by the IT industry being geared toward
production of smart hardware and software. And in the customers' eyes,
some modest savings certainly isn't worth the dramatic reduction in utility and
functionality.

As I was browsing the web, doing a little research
on this topic, I came across this entertaining CNET article from
1996, touting Oracle's $500 Internet PC. Known as the Oracle Network
Computer, this device was arguably the poster child for the web
workstation, "designed as a low-cost alternative to PCs for Net surfing, email,
and word processing and other tasks that don't demand the processing power that
a real PC offers." For $500, you too could buy a virtually
inextensible Network Computer with a closed OS and no hard disk or monitor. Of
course, the market failed to embrace this device. After spinning off this
offer to a separate company called Network Computer, Inc., a new, cheaper,
Linux-based device was launched; $376 then got you a device with a Pentium CPU,
small amount of RAM, 15" CRT, and CD drive. A number of other companies
entered the web PC fray as well, including Microsoft and partners, with the NetPC. Few
purchased these devices, and ultimately the product lines died and some
of the companies behind them folded. Somewhat amusingly, Network
Computer's old domain of nc.com is now a tiny link page
for North Carolina businesses. By the way, I can go to Dell today and, for
$549, buy a new
entry-level PC that includes a 2.66 Ghz processor, 512M of RAM, 80 Gig
hard disk, DVD/CD drive, 15" flat panel screen, color printer (!), Windows XP,
and a variety of bundled software. And,
with history as a guide, it would seem prices will continue to drop for fully
featured PCs. With power so cheap, what incentive is there to choose
otherwise?

Some would
argue that the cost of ownership in certain circumstances is much cheaper for
machines with limited functionality, and I agree with this. I won't say
that there is no need for a browser appliance ever; that would be silly.
Clearly there are some scenarios where a browser appliance is a great fit... a
web kiosk, for example. However, my point is that such devices are not
destined to achieve broad market adoption among individuals and
businesses.

 

Web Services
and RSS

A legitimate case can be made that we are reducing our
dependencies on the web even as we increase our dependencies on the
Internet. Web Services, for example, provide us access to the engines the
power the web (and other things) from our own thick client applications.
Similarly, the success of RSS and thick client readers/aggregators, demonstrates
the overwhelming demand for access to the web's content outside of web browser
captivity. There are of course many other examples of these types of
technology, such as NNTP readers, web mail POP clients, web screen scrapers,
etc. Almost all of the tools in this category have enormous adoption
rates, and each has a similar goal: to make available to all kinds of
clients that functionality and content normally found on the web. We may
already be heading away from the web browser in many respects, not toward
it.

 

So, please, spare me your tired the-browser-OS-is-coming
proclamations. It just ain't gonna
happen.