To HTML5 or Not to HTML5? That Is the Question

Summary

In the desktop environment, people are generally comfortable using a combination of native applications and browser-based applications, and using the browser for nearly everything else.

A few popular native applications are Microsoft Office, TurboTax and Photoshop. Browser-based applications might include games that use a browser plug-in like Flash and a tool like Ajax. The remainder of compute activity is usually accomplished through a browser, most often one of the four leaders: Chrome, Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox and Safari. These browsers are often augmented by Java or JavaScript.

In the mobile compute environment, however, things are not so orderly. Early on, most development effort has been put toward native applications, which have delivered quality user experiences and better performance than browser-based applications.