Yes, this is something I've been thinking about again -- the web vs. the desktop, that dichotomy which really isn't one. In fact, the more I think about it, the less it looks like a dichotomy to me.
I use both desktop and web-based software in my daily routine. This site's hosted using a blogging system called Movable Type, which runs on my web server. The content and its design, however, are composed on my desktop -- I use a standalone blogging application, Windows Live Writer, and the odd bit of FrontPage 2003 to do some HTML / CSS work. And the graphics are done client-side using Photoshop and IRFANVIEW.
In theory, I could do all of this work through a web interface using server-side or web-based software. But by and large, the "fat client" progams do the same job better -- with a more flexible and responsive UI, with less browser klutziness (for lack of a better term to describe the arbitrary restrictions of using a web browser as an interface for anything), and with that much less hassle. Sure, it means I have to reinstall these applications if I move to another PC -- but to me that's just the cost of getting back that much more local productivity. And there are some things that really can't be done through a web browser at all, like capturing local screenshots and editing them quickly.
Here's my take: The two halves are complementary. They will both evolve enormously, and they will evolve in such a way that they will come to complement each other in ways that we didn't anticipate before. But to say that web-based technologies will make the desktop irrelevent or obsolete is like saying photography made charcoal sketches irrelevent or obsolete. Everything's got it's place.
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