Skype and the Future (past and present)

A very few years ago CIO's and CTO's were declaring that web applications were the future.  Significant software projects were launched to convert best-of-breed programs from being desktop applications to being something presentable in a web browser - often at the expense of improved or new functionality.

Having spent a few years on such projects in niche financials for medical pricing and business risks, I have a question for top managers who drank the kool-aid: explain Skype.

Skype is not running in my web browser.  It is a desktop application which happens to run over the internet. Had the FCC ruled otherwise, it could even have been ruled in the USA to be telecom software or have been barred from dialing POTS subscribers or cell phones.

It is not always very well-behaved. It does not update in the background.  Smart is not a word that comes to mind.  It is very popular and it is on handheld devices as an application.

Would you want it running in an HTML browser under HTML5?

Why?  HTML pages are delivered over HTTP using TCP/IP.  Text-chat, audio-chat and video-chat software   may run using a protocol which is neutral as to whether TCP/IP is the protocol or UDP or other.

That Skype is a desktop application comes as no surprise to those who continue to use IRC.

Would we ask developers why Eclipse or Visual Studio have not been converted to run in a Web Browser?

At least no one is asking whether Skype is acceptable as an instance of a RESTful architecture.

Someone may want to argue that Skype is a variant of an RIA for some of its more annoying 'features' that come and go.  Because the Skype client app's internet communication protocol is proprietary, a Gnu video chat is due: perhaps it will be RESTful and run in Firefox.

If Skype can be on your desktop, why is the only "browser" on your desktop running HTTP with HTML as the content markup?  Perhaps a million browsers did not bloom, but at least two alternatives to HTML appeared.

What does strike me when looking at opensource web application server frameworks is that they are almost all tightly coupled to HTML.  They are not likely going to survive communications services 3.0 (whatever that proves to be.)

The irony will be when the Chrome browser dissolves into applets running on an OS - applets for which HTML will be the exception rather than the rule for applets doing anything beyond lookup/display, err, 'browse'.