Widgets started as a freeware application called Kapsules, by two companies. Shellscape Software and Konfabulator, which was recently bought by Yahoo. Simply put, widget technology is a transparent layer on top of your desktop that can execute small software applications. These applications, called widgets, are relatively small and they are compiled and run on the user's machine. Apple has already introduced Widgets in MacOS X v10.4 and after Yahoo bought one of the major widget manufacturers it is expected that this new technology will attract some interest from Microsoft as well. We might even see widgets supported in Windows Vista, or introduced as a Vista add-on. It's very likely that within this year (2006) we will even have a surge of widget applications.

And these applications may very well change the way we access information on the Internet. What still remains to be seen is whether applications such as browsers or e-mail clients will be accessible as widgets. Widgets, however, is not the only way to run and use applications online. In fact, online software in the form of services has been offered for quite some time now. It started with web-based e-mail and now we also have web-based antivirus software and even CRM systems. And just when we thought that that's all we would ever see, Microsoft presented a demo version of Live Office, an online version of Microsoft Office that will be subscription-based.