What people don't realize about SOA and Web Applications

Nearly every analyst thinks that web applications are the next big thing in computing. However, they tend not to see the other side of web applications, and all of the turmoil and strife that may come with them.

1. If you have temporarily lost your internet connection, web apps are useless. Gee, this is a big one. Web apps cannot be used when not connected to the web. Although people using Google Gears and Adobe AIR may beg to differ, web apps rely on an at least somewhat constant internet connection. If the internet evolves into two seperate networks: a network of web pages for information, and a network of integrated runtimes under something such as fluid. Then, a browser can return to being just a browser. However, do standards bodies like the W3C want to tie the web to one proprietary standard? There just might be a format war over the web.
2. Web apps have no room for abandonware. When a company goes bankrupt or a software project gets abandoned on the desktop, normally the world moves on. However, in the wonderful world of web apps, when a piece of software gets abandoned chaos ensues. In a world of nearly entirely web apps, do you think people are going to have fun downloading all of their files and either working on them locally or uploading them to another web app service? How about your grandmother? Will people even be able to get their files after a web app goes offline?
3. Web apps using integrated runtimes tie users in to proprietary standards. When you use Google Gears or Adobe Air next, or even play a flash game, consider the company that is providing you with this technology, and consider how they make their money. Do you think that after web apps become ubiquitous the companies are going to let any one write a web app? If this happens, be sure the Free Software Foundation will have something to say about it.
4. Most web apps require a monthly fee. The current model of software can be compared to a candy bar. With a candy bar, you buy it, and you own that candy bar, free to give it away, and if you give it away you no longer have the candy bar. The same is true for software currently. When you buy a piece of software, either in a box or online, you are presented with a license agreement, which absolves the software company of all responsibility for anything you do with the software and anything the software does. With the current model for online services and web apps, you either get something for free and see ads, or pay a monthly fee. This is because the bandwidth and costs for running the app cost money, and the software company does not want the software it sold you to cost it money. With web apps, you cannot easily give software away, you can just use it for yourself.
5. Web apps have an unfamiliar user interface. Web apps do not easily integrate with the theme of the operating system, so users have to find their way around them on their own, with little to no consistency between one interface and the next. Completely cross platform interfaces do not work well either, as can be seen when one tries to launch a java app on a Mac or on Linux. Once again, if your grandmother is used to one interface at the moment, will she be able to navigate the five of the five different web apps she will be using.

Web apps are not always what they are cracked up to be, and it seems that people are willing to look past those flaws to point out the advantages, such as someone else being responsible for hard disk failures, and the fact that web apps provide a convenient way to inspect all of your data and keep it virus-free, the latter being a topic that may become irrelevant soon. However, in the next few lines I am going to make my biggest prediction yet. I believe that we are in the middle of a web app bubble, and that there will be a web app bust similar to the dot-com bust. Look at all of the people investing in companies such as Google and Yahoo, and look at all of the companies trying to implement web apps, such as Microsoft. However, eventually the web apps may bust, for the reasons outlined above or for a different reason, and when that happens, prepare for the latest fad to become really uncool.