Although web applications are great and handy, many systems are still better in desktop format than web format. This is mainly due to speed and usability. Luckily, with web 2.0 this is changing rapidly and personally I can’t wait for the day that I don’t have to install anything other than an operating system on my machine. For now that won’t be possible, especially not here in SA.
Fortunately bandwidth seems to be the only issue holding us back from achieving this complete online status. Take for instance bid management tools. When working with tons of data, i.e. thousands of keywords, it quickly becomes a nightmare to manage, search through or bulk edit your data online. In the case of DART Search for instance (last time I worked with it was about a year ago), we had to download our lists in excel format & then edit our data, and upload it again. Time consuming to say the least… Adwords editor is a good example of how Google actually acknowledges the fact that it is still much easier to work on your data through the use of a desktop app.
In my case, struggling to find or edit data due to waiting for a page to load, usually leads to postponing the task, which in most cases leads to postponing it indefinitely. This is one of the main reasons we developed our bid management system in a desktop application format. Another reason is the lack of connectivity when for instance travelling, but hopefully this will also change soon as airlines come on board.
The future for user applications and tools are definitely online though and Google is setting a good example with Google Docs, etc. Another great example is Vinny Lingham’s online website creation system, Synthasite, which could perhaps replace software like Dreamweaver, etc. in the future.
