It's not just Microsoft, with its huge investment in PCs, that's banging the smart-client drum. The software stores data on users' hard drives, letting employees at different companies work offline and sync up later to share files and calendars over the Net. And Adobe Systems Inc. next month will begin beta testing Adobe Studio, a hosted service that lets users share graphics files they've created and stored on PCs over the Internet. With the right software, they can do amazing things. You can't do anything offline, and everything is a round trip to the server, which is slow.
Some users disagree with that assessment.
Microsoft says its first attempt to tackle the ASP market was flawed because it failed to use the intelligence of client devices to provide the level of performance users require. The company's Office. Net release, still years away, promises to use the Web to complement, rather than replace, client apps. Features may include self-updates, authentication, and storage services delivered over the Internet. That's what Adobe has in mind with Adobe Studio, a hosted service for PC and Mac users at small design shops where it might make more sense to share data over the Net than via LANs.