There is a clash of the titans going on in the Web-based applications arena. In the blue corner, from Redmond, Washington, the veteran multi-national computer software behemoth Microsoft. In the red corner, from Menlo Park, California, the Sultan of Search Engines, Google. The two have been trading punches for the past few years and the fight is just getting started.

The Microsoft versus Google battle features two companies approaching the Web-based applications market from completely different directions. Bill Gates and Microsoft built its empire on desktop applications running on local PCs, while Google conquered the online search and advertising markets. As Microsoft tries to grab a slice of Google’s search business, Google has been counter-punching by going behind the firewall of Microsoft. What lies ahead is a day where the Internet and browsers, instead of a computer’s operating system, may be the foundation for application development.

Watching Microsoft and Google slug it out for world domination of the computer industry has significant implications, pushing technology to the limit in a race for supremacy. Over the past few years Web-based applications, or Webapps, have been establishing themselves as the preferred platform for business information systems and other critical applications. They are part of the Web 2.0 generation, where websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They house the ability to access interactive facilities, allowing users to run software applications entirely through a browser.

"We're on the cusp of the next generation, the next revolution in computing," Matthew Glotzbach, product management director for Google, recently said. "We're really being ushered into the era of cloud computing."

“Cloud computing” refers to applications and data stored online and accessible from any device with a Web browser. Browser-based software never requires installation processes or hard drive space because it lives in the virtual cloud on the Internet. And whenever you launch it, you always have access to the latest version, unless the Internet connection at your local Starbucks isn’t working.

The blog you’re reading now is posted on Survey Software Online (“SSO”), a complete Web-based user interface and communication platform that enables business professionals to effectively create, deploy and report the results of surveys.

Web-based applications like SSO combine the communication capabilities of the Internet with software resident in the “internet cloud”. A Web-based application is a program that resides entirely on the Internet as a multi-user, cross-platform application that allows many users to work from it at any one moment in time. The many advantages of using this technology are beginning to win over the computing populous.

One of the biggest advantages of Webapps is accessibility. Since applications like the SSO app are based on the Internet, users anywhere in the world can access them.

Plus, the constant updating and that annoying “network administrator” have been zapped by Webapps. Instead of every user having to download patches for their operating system, which seems like a weekly process, patches and upgrades are applied to the Webapp server so it has no impact on the user. The network administrator, who blocks every bit of software you try to install on your system, is bypassed through Webapps.

It may seem that Web applications spell trouble for software makers, and to some degree they do. But software vendors are adjusting to the times. Webapps opens a wider market for software vendors, who aren’t constrained by having to write code around a specific hardware platform and limit their market or incur additional costs to build for another platform. Many bugs and computer viruses are squashed in Web-based applications because no union is necessary between the Webapp and the local computers operating system, which can be rife with problems.

Webapps make the Green movement giddy. With software boxes, printed manuals, shipping costs, CD’s, and all the environmental consequences involved to distribute software, Webapps are both economically and environmentally friendly. Furthermore, Webapps eliminate the entire software piracy issue with one click of the mouse, leaving the U.S. government time to focus on those high-seas Somali pirates instead.

Web-based applications, because they are developed on open source platforms and supported online, provide cost-effective solutions. Webapps work any where, any place, any time, and even conquer the Mac vs. Windows issue, which, of course, is a whole other battle of the titans.

Dr. Jan Stringer, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Survey Software Online