I have worked with enterprise Java since 1997 and as far as I can se we are in the third wave of distributed enterprise computing. First we had fat clients accessing a database directly, then - in the dot.com era - everyone should have hyper-thin clients in the shape of web browsers.

Even though web browser based solutions are good in many cases (web-shops for example), they need a complement, which obviously is the web service connected semi-fat client.

iTunes is a splendid example of a semi-fat client with a web services based hub. The client works very good as a local application, but can connect to hub-functions to the iTunes Music store. Finally it integrates HTML-rendered pages where it makes sense.

The hub in this case is not a database though, but based on a well implemented Service Oriented Architectre (SOA), which make the service interface the public part of the hub, not the database. This makes it easy to actually refactor both the business logic as well as the database without breaking the public hub interface.

I think this model will make very good business systems in the near future, and will work as a very good complement to the pure web browser based systems out there.

What is really interesting in all this is that it is Apple that really shows us the way in this by making a commersial successfull soulution based on its own technologies. Apple, a company that the enterprise don't regard as a real player in the field. Ironic - isn't it?