I think there's one more cause of death, tangentially related to "everyone can see the desktop is over." It is the reason Microsoft did so well in the first pla

I think there's one more cause of death, tangentially related to "everyone can see the desktop is over." It is the reason Microsoft did so well in the first place: people will use seemingly arbitrarily bad software. Even with Ajax, the best web applications still fall far short of the best desktop applications. I guess even Microsoft underestimated users' ability (and willingness) to adapt to constrained or poorly-designed software, and thus use (relatively great) web software. As a born-and-raised Mac user, I still think web apps suck, and for that matter, most Mac apps suck. But the few gems out there are phenomenal (or at least, approach the standard I hold). I wish more apps worked as well.