As Gas pointed out so clearly, it would appear that if you compare Google and Microsoft as a platform, that Microsoft software has an obvious advantage; it’s not crippled by Ajax and HTML limitations.

However, this comparison does not take into account what’s been common knowledge at least since Joel Spolsky discussed it two years ago:

So the Web user interface is about 80% there, and even without new web browsers we can probably get 95% there. This is Good Enough for most people and it’s certainly good enough for developers, who have voted to develop almost every significant new application as a web application.

Which means, suddenly, Microsoft’s API [programming system] doesn’t matter so much. Web applications don’t require Windows.

-How Microsoft Lost the API War

It’s a simple fact: Google = web = good, and MS = computer = better. However, the fanboy part of his essay is mistaken; people care more about ease of use than excess functionality. As Joel says about e-mail, “Almost all the normal people I know are perfectly happy with web-based email, for some reason, no matter how much I try to convince them that the rich client is, uh, richer.”

The “rich interactive user experience” that Tim talks about is nice, of course, but the majority of consumers don’t need it. I didn’t believe it myself until it occured to me that there are really only two reasons I need something that’s not web based: 1) because I want to program, and 2) because I want to play a game.

Instant messenging? Perfectly capable of being web based. E-mail? Gmail does everything I could need, and so does Hotmail. Music? I listen to Pandora. Even videos are the internet’s business now. This illustrates an interesting fact: We are consistently moving towards making it easier to build applications, even at the cost of some power. Web apps are the closest we’ve come to easy; there are no Windows API calls to make, simple architectures, and what’s compiling? We’re almost at the point where basically everyone can get involved; Cheng and File could practically be web developers already, and as Gas said, it’s about the developers.

Whoever gives them that power will be the future of computing.