Reminder: The web isn't *everything*...
More specifically, being online (all the time), isn't everything...
If you've been online and particularly in a business setting for the last 7-8 years, you may remember during the early days of SaaS, on-demand, ASP, BSP (e.g. salesforce.com as the poster child, more directly in my normal crosshairs, SpringCM, Baynote, and more), there was this thinking that the Internet/Web would be our saviour and all "fat clients" would go the way of the dinosaur (other debates on the dinosaur and ark front happening right now - but that's a separate conversation).
What most people didn't realize then (and perhaps now), is that even as broadband adoption has risen, speeds have increased, web interfaces have gotten to be much more intuitive and interactive (Web 2.0 style nowadays), people are addicted to their BlackBerries, Treos, etc.., that well, there are times when you just aren't going to be connected to a live service. (think Planes, trains, automobiles, the MidWest, some skyscrapers in Boston, etc..)
Egad! How to survive! Will we have to speak with people in person rather than electronically? Write on paper rather than tap a graphite stylus? (separate conversation as well)
So, once you get over the hump in realizing that there are TONS of benefits (and acknowledging what you give up in the meantime) to have your infrastructure and applications on-demand (whatever phrase you want to use - SaaS is coming back with a vengeance lately), you begin to realize once again that, if you've gone completely into "the cloud" (the services/on-demand cloud), that you may have chopped out your own legs from under you. Whoops!
In the "real world" you need a bridging capability, to go from completely connected, partially connected, and fully connected - and across different form factors. Not everyone has a laptop or BlackBerry-style device, so they may need access from desktops at home and work, as well as at kiosks (security paranoia shudder!). For those that do have PDAs, still need a way to sync across, or deal with not having access to the apps you would have at your "desktop." And even if you do have a laptop, BlackBerry, and cybernetic implant, well, you still won't always have a live connection - and so need to be able to go offline yet still carry your work (or play) with you.
Google has been doing much experimentation in providing on-demand infrastructure, with services on the consumer and business side, but until last week was not addressing the offline or disconnected experience. With the announcement of "Google Gears" (a set of tools to run web-based apps offline, including relational database, caching server, and asynchronous agents to improve performance) and this week with the announcement of "Google Reader" (their web-based RSS/feed reader) in a newer (and even more beta?) release featuring an ability to download feeds and go offline, although still within a browser-based experience, that's beginning to change.
Very early days on this front - but just as Web 2.0 has been teaching people the power of slick Javascript, manipulating the DOM in browsers, and making the web experience a lot more fun and interactive than "the good ol' days" - this is another step in the right direction to meld the best of on-demand with the best of fat/static clients together, to truly make a seamless experience for users.
Now of course, lest it sound like I'm go go for Google (definitely not on the enterprise search front) it's not as though they invented the notion or capability of online/offline/synchronization - and in many ways, where Ray Ozzie and the Lotus Notes crew were 100 years ago (in Internet years), we haven't collectively gotten much farther than, but then again, not every "innovation" is the shiny, brand new spontaneous combustion we'd like to believe it is.
PS - back when these conversations first came up, there was a push to talk about this continuum between online and offline as "nomadic computing" - I loved that term. Anyone else? I for one, welcome our new nomadic computing overlords.
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