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terrible article...

Great article actually, but it's business focused not code focused

Yeah I thought it was a great article, even though I don't reach the same conclusions as he does.

Hrm. I think the author defines "web" and "desktop" applications in a way that best supports his conclusions. In reality, there's still a lot of overlap, and mobile devices like the iPhone give developers ways to blur the distinctions even further. In general I agree with the sentiment, though, and think that the web is on average a more optimal place for a certain class of commonplace application.
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great article.

Yeah . use GWT

The only thing I get from this article is that the man doesn't know how to deploy a desktop app. Among the 17 steps almost 6 can be removed in todays apps ... You no longer have to download an exe and run it, you directly hit a link and download/install/launch the app in one step, After everytime you launch the app it's going to be updated, exactly like a webapp.

This have existed for years and is called Java Web Start. The only point the article gets is on user feedback, you will have to do some code if you want some.

About the hacking ... check your server at launch time. Desktop apps are not dead, people doing them wrong are.