Back in August, this very interesting suggestion was posted to an ASP.Net mailing list:
In about 7 years Microsoft will kill HTML by dropping direct support for it in their platform. The internet will have been elevated to the operating environment layer and Microsoft will solidify Windows as the only real client platform for Internet based personal computing. Killing Html will effectively kill Java and Linux; which puts Sun and IBM back into the enterprise box without inroads into the PC space. I have never said this on a list, but I can present a solid case and roadmap via current products and the stated goals of Microsoft. Killing Html cleans up a lot of issues with competition. At the end of the day Microsoft is Windows and the greatest threat to Windows is Html.
Of course, I'm a long way behind the times and this person is a long way ahead of the times. The discussion has just come up again on another list and caught my attention because it reminded me of this paper that was very interesting almost a decade ago. I agree with Greenspun that HTML presents the worst of both worlds - ugly formatting AND no structure. However, XML seems to have solved the structural problem. CSS seems to have solved the formatting problem.
Given that HTTP is well and truly entrenched as the premier Internet protocol, it is hard for me to imagine why the Internet community would have much of an interest in moving away from HTML, XML, and CSS. HTTP has its flaws (ie its inherent statelessness and poor implementation of forms) but works pretty well in delivering formatted and structured text to any IP connected device, including:
Paul's argument that Microsoft is going to kill HTML seems to depend on the assumption that each of these devices will be running Windows capable software. It seems unlikely to me that Mercedes, Palm, Sony or Nokia would want to pay MSFT a license fee for every device they sell, so these products will still continue to be built on non-Windows OSes.
A part of my reluctance to subscribe to Paul's theory may be that I am youthful and idealistic, and I have trouble seeing Microsoft setting itself up to dominate the Internet in such a cynical way. I think deep down I know that the shift of applications from the desktop to the web is going to present a huge problem for Microsoft, and they will need a new way of cashing in on this. I can imagine that Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and many other visionaries at MSFT have 10 and 20 year plans and are using today and tomorrow's technology to start achieving the goals in those long term plans. I guess .Net comes under this category.
I also know that people are eventually going to stop buying desktop computers. Almost every household in the Western world is fitted with a TV screen. My mum and my sister would far prefer a dumb device that renders HTML/XML/CSS on our TV than having to put up with the complexities of Windows and the system administration that a PC entails. Bill Gates saw the power of the PC twenty years ago, but he must now see the weakness of the PC when compared to other devices that are more convenient and/or more portable. Given that a large portion of Microsoft's revenue comes from selling desktop software like Windows XP and Office XP, this shift away from PCs is really going to hit Microsoft. I doubt that BillG expects that Microsoft could maintain its current market capitalisation without the desktop market, so Paul's suggestion that they would need to find a new way to make money out of client devices may be correct. But I think that MS would have to do some pretty serious talking with client device manufacturers, and would have to be prepared to do some major re-engineering of OSs.