Bill McCoy

August 24, 2005

WebOS In A Nutshell

Jason Kottke just published GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS?. Great post, and a must-read for those interested in the whole "Web 2.0" concept. I do have a few minor bones to pick:

- Today's Web is more than HTML. I think it's fair to consider the de facto proliferated Web client platform to also comprise SWF, PDF, XML data formats (e.g. RSS), and to a lesser extent Java. It would be great if these client capabilities were all first-class and well-integrated with each other - more on that some other time.

- On a similar "let's not be too HTML-centric" note, arguably the least important thing in making offline apps is serving up the presentation. To support client-side data and business logic, WebOS as posited seems to need a local app server more than a local web server. With the right browser caching strategy a headless app server might be all that's needed for occasionally-connected worfklows like offline Gmail, especially as with both AJAX and SWF-based RIAs an entire app's user experience may be embodied in a single page/URI.

- A number of software solutions have used local web servers, notably Userland Radio and Perforce. Why none of these approaches took off probably deserves some analysis.

- The list of companies who could be thinking in these terms was shy a few names. 'Nuff said.

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