The speakers and audience members cited what they believe are numerous areas where desktop applications enjoy an advantage over Web applications: access to local storage, graphics performance, memory consumption, and the ability to keep sensitive data local.

"We've got a few customers out there who are used to having a desktop app," one audience member said. These customers will wonder what is going on if they are required to install a browser as part of an application upgrade, he said.

Presenters also said desktop Java is fast while AJAX is slow. But they noted better offline support is planned for AJAX via the .

Also at the event, Galbraith announced a project called Nimbus, which is intended to provide a more attractive look and feel for Swing applications. Developed by Sun, Nimbus is an open-source project hosted on . Graphically, Nimbus resembles Mac OS X and the Windows Vista Aero interface technology, said Galbraith.

"In general, it's just a much nicer look and feel," than has been available for Swing before, he said. Nimbus offers features like variable widget sizes for better use of screen space and nested split panes on the user interface.