"1980's here we come"
Which is of course exactly why I don't see this taking off. The world moved away from this model of computing for a reason (largely because it sucked). I know they've been predicting a return to it under various names for a while, but the fact that they keep having to change the name to maintain any level of buzz shows just how little movement towards it there really is.
The world moved away from this because the internet had not taken off and the idea of portable graphical applications was in its infancy, it was too expensive on the hardware side to do it. All the moves you see to client server are showing that it was a model whos time had not come. Will it ever go back to the 80's no, thank goodness. but we will see a hybrid of the two, heck we are already seenig it.
I know they've been predicting a return to it under various names for a while, but the fact that they keep having to change the name to maintain any level of buzz shows just how little movement towards it there really is.
Are you saying there has not been a rise in the importance of web based applications over the past five years? MS has invested a good deal of time and money getting their terminal services going. in NT is was pretty much an after thought but it has matured considerably. We even see vmware esx and others (IBM P-Series) using *gasp* LPAR technology.
Look at ERP packages, how many of them are going web based? why? and why would an office suite be any different?