I think what he's trying to say is, we're not just making programs to run on people's computers anymore. There is a shift into making (generaly) web applications that take the place of those desktop style applications.

The main difference with these newer style applications is their more useful because their always up to date and they allow you to access your data and their functionality from any computer with a modern web browser.

There aren't just the web applications the end user sees either tho. There are the "behind the screens" applications that do things like harvest data (google news) that allow the developers to more efficiently interact with eachother which leads to more innovation.