What no one in the responses is talking about ...is speed of using the UI during day to day operations. Web interfaces are extremely clunky to use when trying

What no one in the responses is talking about ...is speed of using the UI during day to day operations. Web interfaces are extremely clunky to use when trying to do things via only-keyboard (which is the only way to have muscle-memory help you zip through forms) methods. They are slow to update and in some cases, the Web browser's UI is fighting with you, such as offering to replace your input with the previous data you put in a form field of the same name, etc. In certain cases the tab method of navigation between fields gets broken or something else that interrupts the person's flow happens. Having worked in a case where the ticketing system and related interfaces were half-Web and half-Java-application-on-Windows - even the Java application was better to use via the keyboard. If you are paying people on a regular basis, whether hourly or per-shift, and the UI slows people down by 5% , what is the cost over the (perhaps) 3 years of that application's life? Even 4 users at $50k/year each in the USA (with healthcare and other business expenses etc. that means a $20/hour full time job) means $10K/year (5% * 200K salaries) in extra expense.