> Could it be the release of Gmail (2004) and Google Maps (2005) showing that you could actually make really great apps written in HTML and JavaScript? For th

> Could it be the release of Gmail (2004) and Google Maps (2005) showing that you could actually make really great apps written in HTML and JavaScript? For the mass consumer market, these apps definitely demonstrated what was possible with web-technologies. Ironically, Google Maps' dataset is curated in no small part by a powerful Java-based desktop app called Atlas, which was presented at Google I/O 2013: https://youtu.be/FsbLEtS0uls?t=443 https://youtu.be/FsbLEtS0uls?t=443 Perhaps today it would be created with web based technologies, but at this point, it's so powerful that it's doubtful it will ever be ported. I suspect there are a lot of powerful internal tools like that across many industries.