Will the argument over Mac vs. Windows (or Linux) matter in 5 years?

Nova Spivack, founder of Twine, believes change is afoot. The desktop of the future is going to be a hosted web service he suggests.

I quickly read the post (it’s too long). It’s nothing you can’t find elsewhere in terms of ideas (nothing revolutionary). The part that is of interest to me is how he barely discusses the revenue model for this new platform. Right now, the desktop offers a clear model for consumers. I buy a notebook or desktop with the operating system of my preference, and optionally buy software (from applications to games). The second generation iPhone has demonstrated that people are willing to pay for good quality installable applications and not live entirely on “web applications.” The game industry is in the billions every year. 

I have no disagreement with the concept or benefit of web applications. I honestly haven’t found many that I’m interested in using full time. Furthermore, I have found even fewer that I’d be willing to pay a subscription for. Can all vendors be supported by advertising alone? No, that’s not a sustainable path for every application. So, who pays for these applications? Do they have access to your private data (anonymously?) and resell it for marketing purposes (again, advertising, but behind the scenes). Eh, that might sustain a few more businesses.

Furthermore, and speaking from experience, integration of disparate applications (via web services or whatever), is far from a simple task. Not only is there a technical challenge of integrating from protocol perspective (standards often take too long to develop, and leave little in the way for creative-types to flourish), but there’s also the user experience of having multiple different (unique) applications.

Software as a service is going to be hot. There’s no doubt about it.

But, what about the enterprise? What about 99.999% uptime? Few (if any) web application vendors can really guarantee that type of uptime. What’s acceptable though may vary from business to business, but if you’re “web top OS” is down for 4 hours for your enterprise, how much revenue do you loose?

My prediction: there won’t be a winner in the webtop as he describes it. The market is too large for that. So, developers would be forced to choose a platform for their development. Sigh.

What web applications do you use today? I’m not talking about e-mail or RSS readers — something else. Do you use Google Docs for example? For work or home?