Introduction
In the world of cloud computing, more and more SaaS (Software as a Service) offers are using the web. They often allow benefits to organization from software services buildt to their needs. According to the latest news, a change in the web will accelerate the rise of cloud computing.
Do you remember an article, published less than a year ago, predicting the death of the web? Dark omen.
Are “webapps” the future?
Due to the increase in smartphone number it is true that applications invade us. Everyone now uses its Facebook, Twitter or Guardian app, not to forget Angry Birds. None of them works on the web, i.e. in a browser.
iPhone apps are not available on the web
But these days, I’ve seen a new start for another kind of applications: webapps.
Nothing new, really. But we can read more and more about them. Looking at the new application of the Financial Times, Bing, or rumors about the on-going development of Facebook, everything makes me believe that such initiatives should grow.
The web application of the Financial Times
The theory is simple. You find the same functionality as in a typical application but you access it from the web, right in your smartphone browser.
All of this is due to HTML5 (and also Javascript). With this programming language (still in development) you can create web pages visually richer, more interactive and allowing richer content (audio, video) as well.
Examples: Example 1 & Example 2
And I can visit my web application… without the Internet?!
Another significant point is the offline mode. To browse the web, you need a connection. Or don’t you?
HTML5 makes it possible to store the data you need to read the website content on your smartphone or your computer. So you can use it even if you had no connection.
Efficient and cost-effective?
Finally, the choice of this technology for an application depends on the complexity of the setup. HTML5 is intended to be a simple language, easy to develop. So the cost of setup of this kind of application is substantially lowered.
Even if it is always interesting to avoid giving 30% of your earnings to Apple, this is not the greatest advantage.
Apple gets 30% on sales of iPhone applications
Even Microsoft gets started
Union of HTML5 and Windows 8 might be an unprecedented revolution
Another example. You probably know this company called Microsoft, which had always developed its applications to use them in local mode (with almost no interaction with the Internet). It’s over.
In addition to this step of Microsoft into cloud computing (Office 365) — that they really want to show —, the company has just announced the ability of applications to use HTML5 and Javascript in the next Windows 8. All of this is supposed to provide a better user experience.
The marriage between HTML 5 and Windows 8 could be an unprecedented revolution
So what are we waiting for?
So when will HTML5 be ready? HTML5 (as explained above) is still under development. It is planned to be officially released at the end of 2014. Although we can already use the new possibilities it offers (offline Gmail on the iPhone’s Safari since 2.5 years), much remains to discover.
The web is beginning a new life!
