It is a competitive imperative. A plan to give clients Internet access to the data they need will lower costs for them and let clients do business faster and more easily. Web applications are at the heart of allowing businesses to perform these functions effectively. It usually involves extracting information from a corporate database, performing an action against that information and displaying the results. Or more accurately that display inside a browser, since most of the processing is actually done on the server.
Web browsers talk to servers.
Most of the processing is done on the server which may be a combination of Web servers, file servers, application servers and database servers. Web applications promise to save corporations big money, because they do not require high-end PCs on every desk. Web applications offer flexibility, scalability, security, and stability because they are based on open standards. We have all been hearing about thin clients for a while, and Web applications are closely related. While at the same time benefiting from the reduction of resources spent on the management of enterprise software applications.