The Growth in Web Appplication Usage in the US

Rubicon Consulting has just released a White Paper, entitled “The Growth in Web Application USage in the US“: “Status and implications for the tech industry September 25, 2007 Summary: Adoption of web applications is moving faster than most observers realize The rise of web applications — websites that replace the functions of a software program that was traditionally installed on a personal computer”.

This echoes much of what I wrote in my post about why Web Applications are superior to desktop applications – there is a paradigm shift underway.

Summary: Adoption of web applications is moving faster than most observers realize

The rise of web applications — websites that replace the functions of a software program that was traditionally installed on a personal computer — is one of the hottest topics in the tech industry. Huge numbers of “Web 2.0” startups are competing for user attention, and many observers predict rapid growth for web applications.

But most of the analysts refer to web application growth as something that’s going to happen in the future. The reality is that web app usage has already stretched far beyond early adopters, and is moving rapidly into the mainstream of US home computer users. A recent survey, conducted by Rubicon Consulting, showed that more than a third of them already use at least one web application on a regular basis. Students are moving especially fast, with more than 50% using web applications.

Other key findings of the research included:

* Adoption of web applications varies tremendously by category. E-mail and games are the leaders at the moment. Other categories, such as word processing and spreadsheet, still have extremely low adoption of web apps.
* Web applications displace traditional application usage. Among people who use any web applications, those apps consume about 40% of the user’s total application usage time. So web apps are already displacing traditional application usage for many people. This trend is very likely to cut into sales of conventional applications over time.
* Security is a looming problem. Fear of security problems is one of the biggest barriers to further adoption of web applications.

Implications for the industry

To web app companies: Users are incredibly practical; the products must be as well. Although the tech industry spends a lot of time drawing distinctions between traditional software and “Web 2.0” apps, computer users don’t care. They just want to solve their problems. Since virtually all US PC users have a web connection and a browser, if a web app solves their problem, they won’t hesitate to use it. So the barrier to adoption for web applications is extremely low.

But this also puts important responsibilities on web app developers. The research didn’t detect any significant group of people who are biased strongly toward adopting web applications for their own sake. Again, they just want their problems solved. If a web application isn’t better than a traditional software app, or doesn’t solve some new problem, most people won’t adopt it just because it’s on the web.

Web app companies need to ensure they solve real-world problems that significant numbers of people care about, and they need to communicate those benefits clearly.

To traditional software companies: No traditional software application is immune to web-based competition, so adopt web app practices now. It’s easy for traditional packaged software companies to convince themselves that web applications are not an immediate threat. In Rubicon’s work with them, we often hear software company executives say things like, “web applications will be a big challenge to us in three or four years.” Assuming that web app growth will be moderate and predictable is extremely dangerous. Since web app adoption has already moved fast in some software categories, it can move fast in any software category if the web app company gets its features right.

The time for traditional software companies to adopt web app technologies and business practices is now, before they’re in a crisis. If they wait for a crisis to develop, it will probably be too late to respond.

Everyone: Address security now. The security fears of many people who don’t use web applications should be taken very seriously. They show a latent undercurrent of fear that could grow rapidly in the future. A single well-publicized security disaster in a major web app could discredit the entire category and severely limit web app growth, just as safety problems in a few Chinese products have affected the image of the country’s entire manufacturing sector.

The IBM report on mashups acknowledged that there are several efforts underway to make web apps more secure. Web app companies should embrace solutions like these aggressively.

The future bodes well for Synthasite, methinks

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