IMHO
January 8, 1998
John Swenson
MSDN Online
Are you a Web developer or a Windows developer? Since you're visiting MSDN, chances are you develop Windows applications and probably consider yourself a Windows developer. But as the lines rapidly blur between Web applications and Windows applications, how much longer will you bother to make such a distinction?
It's still possible to classify most Microsoft developers into one of these camps, although it's easy to see the distinction between Web developers and Windows developers disappearing almost completely over the next year or two.
Everyone who follows the software industry knows the Web is having a major impact on applications development. But the extent to which Web standards are about to affect Windows applications is greater than many developers realize. I'm surprised at what I've seen here at Microsoft.
The decision to completely integrate Microsoft Internet Explorer with Windows gets the most attention in the press. But in the three months since I joined MSDN, I've discovered how hard Microsoft is working to integrate Web technologies across its entire line of applications and development tools. The work extends far beyond Internet Explorer. Much of it is taking place on a core technology level, with Microsoft helping the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and other standards groups develop the basic technologies for creating Web-enabled applications.
This extent to which Windows development is merging with Web development hit me while I was researching articles on Microsoft Office, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and Extensible Markup Language (XML). HTML and XML—a hot new Web technology that complements HTML—are both Web standards under the guidance of the W3C. The fact that Microsoft will make these Web technologies a cornerstone of Office—the company's most important set of applications—says a lot about the growing importance of Web standards in Windows applications.
Microsoft recently announced that it plans to elevate HTML to a standard file format for the next version of Office. This will essentially turn Office into a giant tool for creating Web content. What is the proprietary technology that will allow Microsoft to make this radical change? There is none. Thanks to some clever use of standard XML and HTML, Office users will be able to automatically save all of their Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and other Office documents as HTML, without sacrificing any document formatting. (Office 97 users can save documents as HTML today, but those HTML files can't preserve all of the rich formatting in native Office 97 files, such as Excel pivot tables or Office Art.)
Office is just the beginning of this trend toward thoroughly Web-enabled applications, or so-called "weblications." Some of the newest Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Money 98, have user interfaces constructed almost entirely from HTML. These applications look and feel like Web sites, using hyperlinks in place of some pull-down menus, for example. To push this trend further, there's even a new weblications team within Microsoft (headed by general manager Adam Bosworth, one of the company's XML experts).
What struck me the most about Windows applications becoming Web applications was not so much Money 98, the next version of Office, or even the creation of a weblications team within Microsoft. The realization came from observing which developer technologies Microsoft is working the hardest to promote. If you've paid attention to the company's message in recent months, you've probably noticed that Microsoft is putting a lot of effort into evangelizing Web technologies backed by the W3C and other Internet standards groups.
HTML 4.0, Dynamic HTML, XML, Extensible Style Language (XSL), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and other Web standards or soon-to-be Web standards are all central to Microsoft's plan to make Windows and Internet Explorer the best computing platform for the Web. If you've visited the MSDN Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/) or Microsoft Site Builder Network (http://www.microsoft.com/sitebuilder/) recently, you may have noticed that we're spending as much time writing about these new Web technologies as about Microsoft's own products and technologies.
Most Windows developers probably underestimate how deeply Microsoft is planning to integrate Web standards into future Windows applications. Based on what I've seen and heard since joining Microsoft three months ago, the company is moving toward a world of weblications that will replace today's desktop Windows applications.
Weblications will create many changes, such as reducing the need to focus on documents and file locations, thereby freeing users to think more about the information they are viewing or authoring. Weblications also promise to eliminate today's concept of applications, by letting users perform tasks without consciously launching an application tailored to each task.
Windows applications will become more Web-enabled and Web-centric than Money 98 and the next version of Office. As more of these Web applications appear, prepare to start hearing the term weblication all the time. And prepare to start seeing a lot of Windows applications that use HTML, Dynamic HTML, and a host of other Web technologies.
As 1998 unfolds, MSDN will bring you lots more information on the tools and technologies for building applications that blend the networked capabilities of the Web with traditional desktop Windows applications.
To prepare for this emerging world of weblications, start by eliminating from your thinking any distinctions you may believe exist between Web applications and Windows applications, or between Web developers and Windows developers. In a world full of weblications, every Windows developer eventually will be a Web developer.
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