I think it's a general problem with services.

I much prefer using desktop software, even when it's discontinued, it still works.

I think the next big thing could be bringing App Stores to servers. 1 click install, zero config, etc. I recently set up my own webmail, it was a pain in the ass. It could be made a lot easier, and I think people would pay for the convenience.

> I think the next big thing could be bringing App Stores to servers.

It doesn't get much easier than "yum install" or "apt-get install".

I'm more thinking so the average person would have their own server for their family, rather than the people who have servers now.

Sure "apt-get install" installs the software, but configuring it to do anything useful is still anything but trivial. Installing Linux, creating a user accounts, setting up an SMTP, POP & IMAP server, installing a webmail app with spam filtering, making sure they all talk to each other, is hard. Installing WordPress is the easiest I've seen, and you still need to create a DB and copy the connection details.

I'm thinking of something as simple as you see a list of Apps (WordPress, PHPBB, etc). Just click 'install' and pick the directory you want it installed in. And you pay $.99 for the convince.

I think it would be good for the industry to move away from ad supported services, and to let users pay to host the services themselves.

> I think it would be good for the industry to move away from ad supported services, and to let users pay to host the services themselves.

I somewhat agree with your perspective, but think its going to be a hard sell. People buy apps because you don't have to think about it. Configuring a service is in direct opposition of that convenience, and I don't think you'll ever have enough training wheels in the interface to fix that.

I could be wrong.

I said it 'could be' the next big thing, not it will be. I agree it's a long shot.

Web Apps have been very good to developers. Zero piracy, no installation issues, low support costs. Users like them because it's simple to get started, they aren't tied to one computer. The downsides are all long term -- and it's hard to get people to think about the future, or things like privacy.

I'm not sure where the drive would come from to make it happen. I don't see which company would put in the investment to get it started.

I bought a Synology box to use as a NAS, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it has its own package manager, complete with web server, e-mail server, torrent downloader, etc. etc.

It's got a long way to go before everyone can use it, but I'm finding more and more uses for it.

This is why I've started migrating all of my cloud services to open-source applications running on my VPS. OwnCloud, TT-RSS, SimpleID, etc.

The SaaS model is deeply flawed, and once people start to realize the implications for security, privacy, and ongoing availability, there'll probably be a shift back to running your own software on your own system.

Whomever comes up with a good consumerized VPS platform with an app store is probably going to win big.

> I much prefer using desktop software, even when it's discontinued, it still works.

So much this. I still fire up xvi32 to look at a binary file once or twice a month... while the latest minor version release was about 2 years ago, it haven't seen any serious changes since circa 2001.

>I think the next big thing could be bringing App Stores to servers

VMware Virtual Appliances and Microsoft Azure apps try to do this. They are of course strictly enterprise-focused though.

Something like http://sandstorm.io/? Not mine, but it looks pretty cool.

Not a lot of details, but it sounds like what I'm thinking about.