i am currently a mainly web developer, but is quite attracted to the performance and great integration with the OS (eg. Windows 7, Jump Lists, Taskbar Thumbnails, etc) something like WPF/C# can provide to the user, improving workflow and productivity. privacy and performance seems like a major downside of web/cloud apps compared to desktop apps.

applications on the cloud/web

• work on the go, increased popularity of smartphones/netbooks
• majority of users may not benefit as much from increased performance of desktop apps, eg. internet surfing, word processing, probably benefit more from decreased startup times, lower costs and data on the cloud

desktop applications

• increased performance benefits power users like 3D rendering, HD video/photo editing, gamers (i wonder if such processing maybe offset to cloud processing)
• integration with OS increases productivity (maybe such features can be adapted to a web version? maybe with a local desktop app to work with Web App API)
• more control over privacy (maybe fixed by encryption?)
• local data access (esp. large files) guaranteed and fast (YouTube HD fast enough most of the time)
• work not affected by intermittent/slow/availability internet connections (i know this is changing tho)

what do you think?