Overlooked Problem With Web Based Applications

While it may be exciting to see Microsoft jumping aboard the web-based application bandwagon, something that I am experiencing right now reminds me why I think there is still a strong place for rich “smart” clients.

There is an important piece of information in an email someone sent me and when I try to login to GMail I get…

Gmail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.

At least with a rich client like Outlook, I would have had that email on my local machine. I also use Yahoo Notepad for important information and have had that site be down a few times when I needed a critical piece of information. It makes me realize that I shouldn’t trust these services to host my important data. I want it on my own machine where I can get to it.

Comments

3 responses

James Avery • November 1st, 2005
I guess the flip-side is that you better be backing up your local machine. :)

Doogal • November 1st, 2005
Use Gmail with POP/SMTP and you get the best of both worlds

Haacked • November 1st, 2005
Doogal, exactly! In a way, that is effectively what a "smart" client is supposed to be (as far as i understand). It's a client that depends on web connectivity, but gives the user a rich client experience.

My ideal application would be a secure rich client that communicates to web services so that documents I am working on are stored both locally and on a remote server in a seamless experience.

I had outlook on my laptop which crashed recently, so I haven't bothered to reinstall it. But if I had, I would have had the best of both worlds. In fact, I had it. After outlook crashed, I still had all my mail on Gmail.