Interesting post by HelpSpot customer Anthony Dunleavy.

I sort of agree, but I think he's a little too broad that desktop applications will always be better. There are some types of applications which simply cannot be done from a desktop app and hence they cannot be better and others where the benefit of being online outweighs the supperior desktop UI.

One thing I think fosters this type of reaction is how the web 2.0 zealots insist that ajax will replace the desktop and how they try and make all their applications replicate the functionality of desktop apps. To me ajax should be used to smooth out the rough spots in the normal web UI, not replace it with a poor desktop replica. HelpSpot now has dozens of places where ajax is used, but there's very few of them where you'd really notice unless you were looking for it. It's just used to make the UI a bit smoother in spots not to completely prevent page refreshes or other silly goals.