Against Clouds

April 3, 2008 By
I don’t usually look to Slate for technology analysis, but I thought I’d blog this as an instance of Nicholas Carr’s ‘Big Switch’ arguments starting to percolate into, and find reactions in, non-techie media (though the author is a credible techie).
clipped from www.slate.com

I think there’s a market for free, Web-based apps that offer basic features. Knock yourselves out, dilettantes. For me, it’ll be years before Photoshop Express can become powerful enough to replace my desktop version, or before Google Docs gets me to uninstall Microsoft Office. I’m not sure I want to. One of the nice things about Word and Photoshop is that once I fire them up and start working, I can forget all about the Internet for a few hours. Sometimes, my PC and I just want to be alone.
  blog it

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About Venkatesh Rao

Venkat is the founder and editor-in-chief of ribbonfarm. Follow him on Twitter

Comments

  1. Ludwig says
    April 3, 2008 at 9:27 pm

    > One of the nice things about Word and
    > Photoshop is that once I fire them up
    > and start working, I can forget all about
    > the Internet for a few hours. Sometimes,
    > my PC and I just want to be alone.

    This is already happening to some extent with the cloud. For example, Google Gears helped their “competitor” Zoho writer go offline.

    There may be other such options. However, I think the bigger dissuader, especially for someone at the other of a not-so-great “broadband” connection on a not-so-fast computer will still be speed and slickness. Can’t help but agree with:

    > For me, it’ll be years before Photoshop
    > Express can become powerful enough to
    > replace my desktop version, or before
    > Google Docs gets me to uninstall
    > Microsoft Office.

    But “years” isn’t in the order of 10-12, but 3-4 possibly.