I suspect that we are too focused on web applications as potential businesses to the exclusion of other ideas. I recently attended a "Startup Camp" barcamp thi

I suspect that we are too focused on web applications as potential businesses to the exclusion of other ideas. I recently attended a "Startup Camp" barcamp thing. We had an idea session, and it started with the reading of a prepared list of ideas -- the audience stopped that, and requested first that the list be filtered to only software ideas; then when a desktop app idea was read out, requested the list be filtered to "server software", and when one of the ideas was a rsync type backup system for your servers, they further explained that by "server software" they meant only web apps. I think this is mainly because web apps are perceived as requiring little capital to launch, compared to other ideas, especially hardware. Desktop software is (rightly) suspected of being a morass of weird APIs and hard work. Java and Java-Webstart are not the correct ways to write desktop software, in my opinion. If you only know Java and your application is mostly a one-off or demo, it will probably get the job done. But it is not encouraging to see most American programmers, when faced with the task of writing a computer program to run on the desktop, immediately get off in the weeds exploring various ways to make web apps run on the desktop. There is a large body research on how do to that, going back 30 years now, and lots of good ways, and systems to make it easy -- it's sad to see a supposedly technical person fiddle with trying to port web apps instead of just cranking out a program. But back to the narrowness of current startup ideas: the cost of doing a hardware product is often over estimated. Don't knock it till you have checked out mfgquote.com. One of the major trends in hardware has been making things customizeable, such as FPGAs instead of ASICs, so no matter what you think up, it is probably not as hard as you immagine. A common objection to hardware ideas is that "I will put a lot of capital into the idea and then cheap chinese manufacturers will copy it and rip me off." This is silly because webapps and software are even easier to copy. The hardware idea that triggered the barcamp audience to request only web apps, was to take the "Mr. Lee catcam" and commercialize it. Unknown to people there (including myself), the guy who did that hack was already selling it -- check out http://www.mr-lee-catcam.de/pe_cc_o1_en.htm http://www.mr-lee-catcam.de/pe_cc_o1_en.htm