I was not paying much attention to the guys predicting the demise of desktop application. It was not easy to comprehend that web would quickly takeover the application space and thrash desktop apps out so soon. Boy was I wrong!!
Don't know why - but suddenly I realized that web apps may soon do so! Two reasons I can think of:
1. AJAX. One reason I loved desktop applications was their interactiveness. With AJAX, a web app is (almost) as easy to use as a desktop application.
2. This article: http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html. This was written long back by Paul Graham but I happened to read it only today. It explained well ahead of time things that are happening now in the web application space.
Projecting based on the "grace" that has suddenly fallen upon me, my predication is that in 2-3 years (yes, still 2-3 more years!!) desktop applications will be almost wiped out!
Bye bye desktop, Welcome Web!
