App Stores are monopolistic on the platform they serve. If I want to build Mac Apps, I have to go through the App Store. Yes, I could make it a web app, but that would limit the types of apps I can create.
What would make more money: Paul Graham lunches everyday for a month at a lower price or limiting supply to 1 Paul Graham lunch at the coming auction price?
Similar to what Swivel was trying to do. Great idea, nice execution, but really how will you monetize this? There is no real market for consumer grade "intuitive" statistical software. While this will appeal to casual data analyzers, these users arnt ready to spend much money on tools. And those doing data analysis for a living prefer their power tools: R, SAS, Matlab, NumPy, etc.
What is definitely dead are Java Swing apps. I believe desktop BCC was a Swing app. Swing app installation and updates are a major pain.
Native apps on an App Store dont suffer from these issues, and their ability to integrate with special OS features make them more compelling vs a web app. Not so with Swing.
> I love the desktop, but that's really not where users are anymore.
Depends on the application and the targeted user. There will always be a demand for apps for the "truck" users. But you are right, the desktop is overkill for the vast majority of people only using computers for email and social media. If they are your target, good luck. For the majority of developers, prices for apps that target these users is a race to the bottom.