I recently worked on a web based product that installed a server and a database on the users machine. All data was stored locally for privacy and locality of cpu resources, but could be backed up in the cloud and shared with whomever the user chose. Given this kind of setup the distinction between web and desktop applications completely disappears.
There are obvious scaling and security issues for this model in the general sense: do you want 200 servers and 200 databases on your local machine, but as a browser managed facility it makes sense to me.
There are obvious scaling and security issues for this model in the general sense: do you want 200 servers and 200 databases on your local machine, but as a browser managed facility it makes sense to me.