Sleepiness in Seattle

The offline web applications like Zimbra narrow the gap between the web and desktop applications in many aspects like connectivity, performance, reliability, etc.  The newly released Google Gear is an even bigger hit in that it sets a platform to help bring any web application "offline".  This will change the way people perceive "web application".  You do NOT need to be always connected to a network in order to use a web application any more.

Followed offline app demo above, I tried the offline Google Reader.  It is very cool.  Also tried simulating an unexpected network connection drop.  When browsing the feeds in Google Reader in "online" mode, the network was suddenly disconnected.  It tried to read the content but timed out.  Then it popped up a window reporting the connection drop and asked if I would like to switch to "offline" mode.  Answer "yes" and I was able to continue reading the feeds offline!  After I get back online, the local data (items marked as read) is synchronized back to the server.  I was never a big fan of Google Reader due to its lack of useful features.  But this offline mode really draws my attention and interest to try using it more.

What’s next?  If this offline technology is used in developing mobile applications and it supports automatic smart downloading and synchronizing, it could greatly improve the performance of the sophisticated applications running on mobile devices with limited bandwidth.

An interesting comparison is with the Microsoft Smart Clients offline mode emerged in 2004 with the similar idea.

Zimbra Goes Offline With Zimbra Desktop

The history is once again recurring. Off-line application, then online application, and then "off-line application" again. But rather than circling, this is an evolution in a rising spiral style. When Google online web applications take on Microsoft Office and there is heated discussion about their comparison, this third approach is emerging. Although Google enjoys the buzz of its branding and pricing, web apps still has many limitations like rich UI, performance, security, difficult admin maintenance due to frequent incremental software change, and so on. Off-line ajax solution answered some very important challenges of web apps. For example, the not yet pervasive and stable Internet connection, page latency, and UI responsiveness. This helps narrowing the gap between the web apps and traditional desktop apps.

From server client model’s point of view. The same recurring phenomenon is going on. Single machines, main frame, distributed systems, peer to peer systems, web applications running on central servers, and now off-line web applications. The big difference is the placement of software components and the global computing environments and infrastructure – majorly Internet.

From hierarchical architecture’s point of view, the off-line web application is a more sophisticated caching model which involves not only static data like web pages and cookies but also software components and application states that run independently on the client machine without any help from the mother ship – servers. This has a load of benefits. For example, performance will improve a lot. "Off-line" is not only used when the network connection is off. Software components and state is cached locally and reduced a large portion of the server-client interaction round trips, especially those bulky post backs. Users data are better maintained locally and is immune to page load failure due to temporary connection problems.

Off-line mode is a significant innovation, but most of the rest of the system is more or less copy from Microsoft Office and/or Google Apps. But it’s always like that, new startups who come up with a product, 10% of which are new ideas, are regarded innovative, but the big guys who come up with a similar product are still regarded as copy cats The expectations for them are quite different. The world is flattening and so does the computer software industry. These emerging new products are pushing the software moving forward faster.