As technology rambles on, we see an ever increase in the richness of client-side web-hosted applications. Web applications need to move beyond RIA and into fully fledged applications which are downloaded like a web page but have more and more thick-client-like behaviour such as client-side storage.

Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard this all before but the big question is when is it going to happen and how?

The technology that’ll power this is undoubtedly HTML5.

Looking at the desktop market-share we see that

1. Firefox – 31.26%
2. Internet Explorer 8 – 25.23%
3. Internet Explorer 6 – 18.11%
4. Internet Explorer 7 – 12.59%
5. Chrome – 7.72%
6. Safari – 5.15%
7. Opera – 1.98%

Reference – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

If you want to know the HTML5 story you must look at the rendering engine used by these browsers.

All browsers render web pages through the use of a “rendering engine”, this is what how the HTML, CSS is interpreted and turned into a visualization of the page. Current rendering engines are WebKit (Safari, Chrome), Gecko(Seamonkey, Firefox) and Trident (Internet Explorer) with some other outliers.

Wikipedia details how well the rendering engines compare in terms of HTML5 support [LINK] and we find that WebKit is leading the pack.

Webkit-powered browsers have the least market share on the desktop (right now) but the highest market share on mobile devices. In fact in February RIM made indications that it was planning to move the Blackberry to a WebKit powered device.

According to NPD [link]:

“Currently, BlackBerry leads the pack with 36% of market share of smartphones with Android following closely with 28% and iPhone chugging along at 21% for the 2010 sales”

Add that the recent introduction of the iPad which no doubt uses Webkit in some form for its browser and you have the perfect storm of WebKit support on smartphones (excluding other mobile devices such as traditional cell phones which don’t really factor into this discussion).

Consequently It seems Smartphones/Pads will be among some of the first devices to really support HTML5. Smartphone user base grew at somewhere between 10-20% in 2009 and by 2011 50% of all phones sold are expected to be smartphones. Clearly there is huge demand for this technology. Even today, my Dolphin Browser running on android is scoring a “144 out of a possible 300″ for HTML5 support whereas IE8 on Windows 7 scores a pitiful “27″.

What does this mean in terms of IT? Well HTML5 fills a lot of gaps. Better browser APIs, more advanced media playback, offline storage, vector graphics support, intra-browser communication and better markup.

If you’re looking at making a presentation-tier investment then JavaScript, CSS and HTML 5 remain your best choices. I expect Flash to continue to hold court in certain areas but with an ever-greater spotlight being shone on security I’d expect a drop off of some kind. I really don’t see the point of AIR anymore and any future needs for vector graphics can be directed to the HTML5 standard. Silverlight? JavaFX? Well who’s to say but right now I could not justify an investment in these technologies by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s a good time to be a developer; Javascript, CSS and HTML skills will be ever more in demand, dev tools in the area will become first-class citizens and who knows, we may even see some decent code-coverage tools for the client-side.

You can check your browser’s support at http://html5test.com/.

The image on this post is a capture of the SVG Tiger, typically used as a test case for vector graphics support (similar to the OpenGL Mandril). You can find an actual vector-rendering of same using an HTML5 capable browser and Raphael here [LINK]