Title: Office Web Apps are just Proof-of-Concepts
Author: Alex Kirk
Published: October 8, 2005

---

# Office Web Apps are just Proof-of-Concepts

October 8, 2005

AJAX applications are far from replacing desktop office apps. So is Flash by the
way.

[Several projects](http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/index.php?p=20) are trying
to prove the opposite. I still think that it will not happen.

The current development is only a rise of quite sophisticated JavaScript applications.
We had such applications before but now it’s “in” or rather acceptable to use JavaScript
extensively. No. It seems to be a must to use JavaScript in new applications now.

I’ve created JS based applications back in 1997 when I couldn’t afford web space
with server side scripting. As soon as I started working with PHP I gave it up because
servers were clearly faster at generating pages than browsers at interpreting JavaScript.

Rich interfaces were left to Flash at that time. As the Flash Player resides in 
the browser as a plug-in and operates as a natively compiled program for the platform
it is run on, it provides more speed and is not only fairly dependent on browser
restrictions. Additionally it is optimized for multimedia operation which made it
first choice for complex navigation.

Browsers (or rather the PCs) are now fast enough to support JavaScript apps. And
XmlHttpRequest of AJAX has provided the kick-off. We are now seeing rich interfaces
done in JavaScript with the possibility of real time server communication for failure
fallback.

There are a few points that keep AJAX apps from taking over. They mainly go together
with arguments against Flash.

 * **We are still caught in a browser.** Ordinary web apps sit — by definition, 
   of course — in a web browser. There are no means for accessing the local storage—
   which is initially a good thing. But when it comes to web apps you need to do
   all this up- and downloading to use these apps. Or you store everything at their
   server.
 * **We are still caught in a browser.** This is also a problem of user interface.“
   Normal” users have slowly adopted a different way of using interfaces when surfing
   inside a browser (single click vs. double click). With new interfaces we challenge
   them to start using web apps in another way once again. We should think about
   that thoroughly.
 * **Web apps want your data.** (see [What is Web 2.0 by Tim O’Reilly](http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html?page=5))
   When using web applications you need to trust that app **and** give them all 
   your data. Also for security reasons there is no chance to properly store the
   data on the client side. But even if there was, the web app would already have
   all your data anyway — as it needs it for processing it.
 * **Running complex apps in JavaScript is a waste of CPU power.** Our computers
   have become faster, that’s true. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to use the
   speed for having a browser execute an app in JavaScript when we have stronger
   equivalents on our desktop.
 * **Flash is a plugin.** On the one hand it’s a good thing. We have more CPU power.
   On the other hand it just does not feel right. I cannot use the browser’s find
   function. Brr.

For these reasons I stick to my opinion that most of the web based office apps we
see now are just a proof of concept. In near future they will not replace real office
apps.

We also need to find methods to be able to effectively share data with our desktop
computer. The current solutions I know are far from usable and prevent any ordinary
user from getting into such projects.

All in all I am far from being against AJAX apps. But we need to keep the focus 
on apps where the technique can be applied in a useful way. I see them in the fields
of collaboration and communication.

office, apps, ajax, flash, web2.0

[Web](https://alex.kirk.at/category/web/)

Read this next

[Code downloading with AJAX](https://alex.kirk.at/2005/10/05/code-downloading-with-ajax/)

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