What does the future hold? A plug-in in every pot? Well, no; at least not according to Jim Carroll, author of the Canadian Internet Handbook. Carroll splits plug-ins into two categories: those that give us multimedia capabilities and those that have more targeted functions.

Multimedia plug-ins, he says, have a future - but not as stand-alone software. Carroll says the development path of browsers and their plug-ins will follow the Microsoft Windows pattern. Microsoft Windows started out as a basic graphical interface. Separate programs were needed to check for viruses, do disk compression and manage memory. Over time these programs were added to Windows and many of the stand-alone programs disappeared.

Carroll sees a parallel future for browsers and plug-ins. "I think a lot of plug-ins will become a seamless part of the browser. They won't run as stand-alone programs." Indeed, the latest versions of the leading browsers come with support for multimedia effects such as video and animation.

Plug-ins with more targeted functions - like creating presentation documents, spreadsheets, or maps - will disappear. "These were products that already existed, and people just changed them into plug-ins because the Internet is hot", says Carroll. These functions will eventually be handled by the applications themselves, which will go out on the Internet automatically, bypassing the browser altogether.

For instance, if you're using an accounting program, and you want to add data from your bank account, you'll simply click a button that says something like "get update from my bank". The application will do the rest: dial into the Internet, log on, provide your user ID and password, grab the data you want, and hang up.

Carroll contends that desktop applications of the future will be more Web-aware - office suites are already taking a big step in that direction. But for the moment, competition between Netscape and Microsoft will ensure lots of free functionality in the next generation of browsers. Furthermore, today's lack of Web-ready software means that plug-ins should still be with us for some time to come.