Web apps vs Desktop apps

Well, my view is that we cannot be able to accurately point the better technology here. It all dwells down to the type of the application you are developing. Here are a number of points to take note of when deciding which type of application is best.

1.       Speed- if you are developing applications that need high response speeds like need for speed then certainly the web solution is not the way to go (for now, we might have very fast connections in the future). For normal applications though the web solution is more of a better option for the same reasons mentioned by James. The issue of speed might not be that consequential in your application if you make use of AJAX(a topic I suggest we might need to talk about)

2.       Security- with internet comes more risk and how much you can tolerate depends on the security  requirements of  you applications and whether you are going to use the internet for the web solution or an intranet in which case the risk  is lower

3.       Accessibility- if the users of the system are constantly connected then web is ideal, on the contrary desktop applications are more suitable for offline working and are targeted at a specific group of users in an organization. WEB applications deployed over the web are normally accessibly to anyone with internet connections hence the audience of the application play a vital role in deciding your implementation

4.       Reliability- application with critical safety and reliability implications are normally deployed as desktop apps, again due to the high risk and unreliable connectivity of the internet

These are just view points to take note of, in my own view I see more general applications being deployed as web applications while customized applications will be deployed as web based intranet solutions. The high speed and high business coupled apps will remain the desktop domain. I can safety say both solutions are here to stay for a while; it might be of great use to be comfortable with both. For .net and java folks all is well because you practically use the same environment for both applications.