Not with a bang

Has the Age of Windows passed? I think it has. Not only that, I think the age of the web application is passing. We're now entering the age of the smartphone app.

In the past, transitions from one technology to another have been sharp and well-defined. When IBM released the first PC (the model 5150) companies jumped onto the PC-DOS bandwagon. Products were either ported from CP/M to PC-DOS or made for PC-DOS with no attempt at compatibility with the older systems. (A few perhaps, but the vast majority of applications were made for PC-DOS and the IBM PC.)

When Microsoft introduced Windows 3.1, manufacturers climbed onto the bandwagon and created Windows applications and abandoned MS-DOS. Windows 3.1 was a "windows thing" on top of the "DOS thing", so the old MS-DOS applications still ran, but all new applications were for Windows.

(I'm ignoring certain technologies, such as OS/2, CP/M-86, and the UCSD p-System. I'm also ignoring Macintosh, although I suspect that the Apple II/Macintosh transition was also fairly swift.)

Back to Windows. Since the rise of Windows, we've had one major transition and we're in the midst of another major transition. The first was the shift from Windows (or client/server) applications to web applications. The second, occurring now, is from Windows and desktop web applications to mobile web applications.

The shift from client/server to web app occurred slowly. There was no "killer app" for the web, no counterpart to Lotus 1-2-3 that pulled people to PCs or network support that pulled people to Windows 3.1. The transition was much slower. (One could argue that the killer app for the web was Google, or YouTube, but it is a difficult case.)

Back to Windows. I think that the Age of Windows is over. Think about it: all new applications are designed for either the web or a mobile phone (usually the iPhone).

Don't believe me? Try this test: Name a major commercial application designed for Windows that has been released in the past year. Not applications that run in a browser, but on Windows (and only on Windows). I was going to rule out applications from Microsoft, but I cannot think of new applications for Windows, even from them. (New versions of products don't count.)

I cannot think of any new applications. I can think of new applications for the web (Facebook, Twitter, DOPPLR, etc.) but these live in the browser, and none of them are tied to Internet Explorer. The iPhone has oodles of new applications, including games such as Labyrinth and the Ocarina player. I don't know of anything significant in the commercial space that is specific to the iPhone, but I suspect that it is coming.

But its more than just a move away from Windows. The market has moved, quietly, from Windows to web apps. Windows applications join their older cousins written in COBOL for "big iron" in the maintenance yard. That's old news.

The market is moving again.

As I see it, Facebook is the last major desktop web application. By "desktop web application" I mean an application that was designed for a web browser on a desktop PC. Faeebook was certainly designed that way, with the iPhone version as an afterthought.

Twitter, on the other hand, was designed out of the gate as an iPhone application, with the Windows client as a concession to the technical laggards.

The creativity has shifted to the smart phone. New applications will be made for the iPhone and other smart phones. The talented developers are thinking about smartphones, not desktop web, and certainly not Windows. Older platforms such as the desktop web and Windows are now "mature" platforms. Their applications will be maintained, but the platforms get nothing new. The new applications will be designed for smartphones. A few apps may carry over from the smartphone, but it will be difficult: smartphones have mobility, position awareness, and a degree of intimacy not available to desktop users.

Not with a bang, but a whimper, does the curtain fall on Windows. And desktop web applications.