Times are a changing! Right now, in the year 2009, the most ubiquitous method of presenting humans with information, and the interface to deal with said information is by displaying this data in the form of a web application. Using the web as a application platform allows the most folks to access the application. With more and more web browsers becoming standards compliant, one would hope that soon web applications will transcend their platform specific ancestors.
Onward to a bright new future!