There aren't any Big New Desktop Applications.

Joshua Marinacci writes Myth: There aren't any commercial apps written in Java.

A observation he makes is that all of the Desktop App, and make things that were once applications but are now part of the OS, have been either commoditized or monopolized (or both).

word processing, spreadsheets, email, web browsing. presentations

It kind of fits Jonathan Schwartz's blog about Commodities and IT, but with (on the desktop) Microsoft playing the role of Standard Oil

Joshua also observes 2 places where their is growth in software, and new applications :

pure Web based applications like: google; web based email like gmail or Yahoo Mail and blogs or their web based blog aggregators & their blog analyzers like technorati.

And new network and multi-media apps lik :Chat; Distributed PIM's; P2P file sharing; MP3 players.