I can imagine the movie trailer voiceover: "In a world where Thin Clients rule, one man (and a very large software company) is fighting back..."
This is a movie starring Robert Scoble, Microsoft's most famous blogger. It's about the war against Web-based apps and the script is being written by Robert himself. First he said:
"...Olivier has the thin-client disease that's all the rage lately. Here's a hint: the thick client is coming back."
He expands on Thick Clients (ha ha, geddit?) in a later post:
"Thin clients are fine (an entire wing of our business, MSN, builds for them) but thin clients fall apart when you fly in planes every two weeks (without Wifi). Is that drinking the Microsoft Koolaid? Maybe, but when you get Photoshop in your browser let me know, OK? And technologies like WinFS will keep thick clients relevant for more than a decade."
Ah, the old 'Photoshop in a browser' argument. I admit I would love to have a web-based image editor program. I recently downloaded The Gimp, as I no longer have access to Photoshop. Luckily it's not a large program (a little over 30MB I think), so it's not too much hassle to install it on multiple machines. Even so, it would be nice to have it as a web service... So yes, Robert you have a point there.
Incidentally and ironically, I found a good definition of 'Thin Client' on Microsoft's site: "A network device that has the ability to process information independently but relies on servers for applications, data storage, and administration. See also network computer, Windows terminal."
In other words, 'Thin Client' means the server does all the work.
But ultimately, much as I like a good war movie, I have to disagree with Robert. We're now in a world of broadband and ever-increasing storage space on servers - both of which are becoming cheaper every day (unlike petrol). So the Thin Client is not only here to stay - it's set to become the next big Brad Pitt blockbuster.
Thick Clients are like silent movies in the late 1920's, just before talkies took over. We're entering a new era of Thin Clients - and I for one know how this movie will end.
[note: The "in a world where..." bit was inspired by Rogers Cadenhead and The Morning News]
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Actually, I'm personally seeing the slow return of thick clients, but not in the Microsoft way. This time, besides "the web as platform" meme, when it comes to computing itself, I think browsers themselves are acting as the development platforms, thus the only thick clients we need.
Think about the things we can do with Greasemonkey and all the other Firefox extensions, which can run on multiple OS platforms as long as they are run on Firefox. We have to admit that gradually, more and more computing is being done on the client side: not on Windows, but on browsers.
Throw in the RIA applications to the mix. AJAX apps, Flash apps, SVG apps, even Laszlo apps (Pandora rules!) are helping us experience things that weren't possible without ActiveX years ago. Again on browsers. Yes, there are still many things we can't do on browsers "yet", but the gap is rapidly closing.
With that kind of "thick client" trend, I see that the Web itself is going to be more filled with data floating around (not contained) and many clients are going to directly access structured data on the web (like in Adam Bosworth's MySQL talk or the Semantic Web's SPARQL effort)
To me, the 'Photoshop in a browser' argument is like saying C is always superior to Java because developers can directly access memory in C. Hey, why not machine language then? ;)
Posted by: twdanny | August 30, 2005 10:55 AM
I think Robert's point about needing to be able to function in a disconnected environment makes sense. The question, of course, is whether or not disconnected environments are becoming an endangered species or not. You're probably right, because those people that would want to preserve a region of disconnection are the same ones that wouldn't care about access to their digital data while inside said region.
Of course, we should all realize that by that lovely law of relative doubling, what we consider a thin client 5 years from now would have been considered a huge mammoth inefficient beast of a program 5 years ago. Times change, and I think our definitions of thin and thick are changing as well. And some older versions of Photoshop have a much smaller memory footprint than many a modern browser. So photoshop in a browser actually may not be all that far off - but it might only be the equivalent of photoshop 1.0, to start out with.
Posted by: Andrew Chen | August 30, 2005 11:19 AM
It's worth noting that Scoble's claim that "thin clients fall apart when you fly in planes every two weeks (without Wifi)" is also a straw man. We're rapidly moving into an age of ubiquitous access (hello, Korea!) and honestly, when's the last time you've used a computer not connected to the Web? Yes, flying is still a bother, but not for long. Besides, that's my time to read magazines.
Posted by: Eric Marcoullier | August 30, 2005 9:18 PM
Let's see. we have one "blogger" who works for an old giant. and another one working mainly to promote buzz-concepts and memes (web 2.0? c'mon, get over yourself). and they don't agree on...what? whether thin or thick clients will rule the future of personal computing? well, who the f... cares? that is as interesting as debating whether windows vista is a good or bad name.
Posted by: Figo | August 31, 2005 8:14 AM
I agree that there's some silliness to the black-or-white nature of the argument. Thick or thin are just points on the spectrum, and relative ones at that. What matters is that it's getting easier and easier to provide decent usability and functionality in the browsers. twdanny is right - the browser is becoming the platform. Netscape saw this long ago, they were just ahead of the curve.
Posted by: Sam Schillace | August 31, 2005 3:34 PM
Excellent comments folks. I agree that it's not as black and white as I made it out to be in this post (or Robert made it out to be in *his* posts). On the other hand, as I mentioned in my 'SoulWeb' post, I can forsee a future where *everything* is in the cloud/network.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 31, 2005 4:39 PM
I think what will happen eventually is that we will move to a usage model where data will reside on the server but applications will continue to work on the local client as well in a disconnected mode. A lot like how the cached mode for Outlook works. So when you are on a plane, you will be able to use your applications with equal ease. Your data will sync with a server whenever you go online next. I really don't see why bulk of actual computing needs to happen on the server. Processing power is cheap.
Posted by: Gaurav | August 31, 2005 11:23 PM
It isn't about processing power. It is about implementation and maintenance costs. No one really wants to have to implement things multiple times, but that's exactly what you have to do if you are going to be able to function both online and offline. Only folks with programmer effort to spare will bother with that - and that isn't likely to be open-source developers, because they usually develop for themselves and they're not likely to be disconnected. And that isn't likely to be major software developers either, because they usually don't have programmer effort to spare, and the disconnected portion of the population will increasingly get smaller and smaller, and so investing in such niches will not be cost-effective for them either. Of course, long-tail theories suggest niches get filled eventually, but as the niche decreases in size (as the niche of people who want disconnected capabilities will), building momentum to get such projects finished within that niche will be difficult, as the likelihood that the best developers (which will be continually changing) will make the leap from disconnected to connected and then cease to be involved is likely, in my opinion, thus preventing that niche from ever gaining a quality and well-maintained product in the end-game of the connected era.
Posted by: Andrew Chen | September 1, 2005 2:39 PM