Desktop vs. Web Clients

This article attempts to present a definitive discussion regarding typical Desktop (installed) client applications and web-based (browser) clients, with a focus on relevant Digital-Clay features in both areas. Digital-Clay offers both desktop and web versions of ClayStation, each complementing the other's weaknesses.

Web-based applications are being touted as an improvement in many ways, as an exciting and better technology, and sometimes even as a replacement for most desktop applications. There are many myths and misunderstandings, and the real-world shows that the advantages and disadvantages are more complex than the marketing hype leads us to believe.

One standard argument is that a web application is accessible anywhere in the world, and due to its zero-install capability, is available even in internet cafes.

Although this may be true when it comes to applications such as e-mail clients or file sharing, there are some caveats and differences in the business world:

• The majority of travelling employees almost always work with laptops in order to have various documents, presentations, e-mails, etc. available. In addition, often the administrator sets up a VPN connection to the company LAN so that they can continue working and collaborating as usual.
• Web applications are based on internet connections. In locations where the internet is not available or is down temporarily, the employees would be stuck without data.
• Using VPN or direct connections, Digital-Clay desktop clients can connect to ClayCentral remotely, but even in cases where a VPN is not possible, Digital-Clay offers e-mail connectivity which can even connect to ClayCentral behind a firewall.
• If all else fails, or when networking is not available, Digital-Clay ClayStation can continue working offline with most functionality and data. Web applications usually don't provide this fallback capability, or if they do, the features and/or available data may be very limited.

Summary: Depending on the available connectivity options and features, both Desktop and Web applications have pros and cons. Digital-Clay offers a web client for employees that can benefit from such an environment, as well as two desktop fallback options to cover even difficult remote connectivity challenges.

Slow responsiveness is an obvious problem with Web applications, especially public hosted ones. Due to the fact that every request must go through the browser, internet, web server, and relatively slower scripting languages, wait times are usually seconds instead of milliseconds.

What makes it worse psychologically is that the waits are unpredictable so that even if users get used to waiting, they can get annoyed when internet congestion, or public usage-peak times cause even longer waiting times.

One of the biggest advantages of Web applications is that clients do not have to be installed or upgraded, thus lightening the load on the administrators very significantly. This is especially important when dealing with hundreds of connected users and machines.

Digital-Clay desktop clients address this with the following features:

• Automatic background upgrades with the latest bug-fixes for ClayCentral. In the case of in-house web applications, this is even an advantage over manual web application updates.
• Clients are forced to automatically upgrade their clients to match the ClayCentral version before connecting. Upgrades are run via a single click and usually take up to a minute.
• Upgrades are run using a system account, thus not requiring administrator intervention on restricted computers.
• Client and ClayCentral installations are extremely simple, take only a minute and can be automated using network login scripts.
• User profiles and settings are centrally managed, allowing administrators to configure hundreds of users at once from one machine.

Summary: Desktop clients have a slight disadvantage here but only during the initial deployment stage and even that can be automated. If web applications are hosted in-house, Digital-Clay may actually take less time and resources to deploy due to the complexity of web server installations. For companies that want to avoid any possible upgrading issues, Digital-Clay also offers a web ClayStation.

Although web applications are seen by some as administration panaceas, the issues are more complex when it comes to servers.

First of all, there is obviously a big difference depending on whether the web server application is hosted by a third-party or hosted in-house. In-house solutions necessitate as much, if not more administration work due to the complexity of managing the web server, scripting tools and the application itself. Even web applications that are hosted by a web hosting provider (as opposed to an application hosting solution) have to be installed, configured and managed.

Even with hosted solutions, the price includes administration costs and is therefore higher. So in all cases, the company is going to pay for administration; The question is only which solution it prefers, each having its advantages and disadvantages:

• Cost: Monthly payments may be cheaper at first but in the long-term may cost much more, depending on the amount of maintenance needed for the server. Digital-Clay is very low maintenance which only leaves other issues such as hardware, operating system and backup issues, many of which the company may already be paying for with existing servers and administrators.

• Digital-Clay may also be available at low initial cost or at rental prices depending on the customer.

• When it comes to hardware redundancy and availability, Web applications may seem to have an advantage due to the fact that smaller companies don't want to deal with such expensive and complex issues, but even popular web applications have downtimes lasting hours. Add to this connectivity problems that are not up to the hosted solution (e.g. local networking problems and internet availability) and a hosted solution can easily lose its appeal for some customers. Note that networking downtimes with in-house solutions are NOT avoided with hosted solutions - only the actual server administration is delegated.

• With hosted solutions, a big problem may be the lack of control. I.e. a company can hire more people or bring in experts to solve their problems faster, but when a hosted solution goes down they can only wait.

• Security: A publically hosted web application obviously is an easier target and therefore needs much more security and protection from attacks. With an in-house solution, the server can simply be cut off from the outside using a firewall or connected to using a standard and very secure VPN.

Summary: Once again, there are concerns to address with both approaches and in many cases Digital-Clay as an in-house solution may be preferable.

See above.

This issue is a technological work in progress but despite the existence of advanced web technologies such as AJAX and Flash, many web applications suffer in comparison to desktop applications.

The most obvious example is Google Earth vs Google Maps: Google is arguably the king of internet applications but when it came to making an application that needed high-performance and rich user-interaction, it was implemented as a desktop application.

Digital-Clay employs many rich interactive features such as analysis and dashboards, drill-downs, zooming and expanding chart nodes, etc. Everything is clickable and context-sensitive including items in drop-downs, single cells in tables, chart nodes, and graph bars. Such rich interactivity would not be available in web applications, and even if they would be implemented using the latest technologies, there are still several limitations and speed issues.

With typical Web applications, every little click is a wait, almost every change means reloading a whole page, etc.

Other concerns:

• Browser compatibility.
• The 'living in a browser' effect where multiple applications are run within the browser, sometimes even grouped together which may cause stability issues.

Summary: Complex or annoying interfaces exist in both Web and Desktop applications but given the current limitations and speed of Web applications, some things are much better suited to Desktop applications.

With hosted solutions, there is the additional psychological issue of not being in control. This includes:

• Trusting the third-party with sensitive company data.
• Trusting the security of a public application.
• Trusting the availability of the site and its backup system in case of failure.
• Trusting the future of the hosting solution.
• Not having control over problems that arise such as downtimes and response times. If the solution is hosted in-house, administrators and experts can be called in and managed to solve the problems faster, but with hosted solutions the companies can only wait.

When popular web applications go down, people panic, thousands of businesses can't work and get angry, probably much more so than if they were hosting the application themselves. This is due to the helplessness factor.

In addition to the web version of ClayStation, Digital-Clay offers the following web-friendly features:

• When records need to be added by external users or guest accounts, Digital-Clay offers a Data Injection feature which allows entering and updating data via web forms or other applications.
• Reports can be sent to external users in HTML format using Automation.

Both Desktop and Web Applications have their niche, their pros and cons, and their appeal differs depending on types of usage, and the user's responsibilities. Although praised by administrators and new technology enthusiasts, there are many issues to consider when evaluating a web-based solution. Although it has some advantages, these are not as clear-cut as the current marketing hype leads us to to believe and end-users who have to use the software hours every day may often prefer faster and richer solutions.

Desktop applications are not likely to disappear for the same reason thin clients and dumb terminals didn't replace workstations, and applets or web services didn't kill the application as was predicted. Markets segment rather than get replaced, and more hybrids or variations are likely to appear.

Also, many of the benefits of web applications depend on whether the application is hosted by a third-party, or is managed in-house.

Digital-Clay desktop clients contain all of the advantages of a Desktop application, and address most of the advantages of web applications with substitute features. In addition, Digital-Clay ClayStation can also be run as a pure web application that connects to the same ClayCentral as the desktop clients. Thus, Digital-Clay offers a solution that is the best of both worlds.