Greens Screens are like zombies – they should be dead but they live on. Why ? Because they meet a need…… Very very fast response time on apps like inventory, travel agency bookings, accounting screens and other UI operations where even the slighest lag or delay cuts operator efficiency. These systems deliver a high informational transfer with occasional transactional entries – and keep their users very happy. The character mode GUI got pruned too soon from the Windows and GUI bitmap screens.
So now character mode GUI, the green screen, lives on because their users rebel and users managers surrender when they see productivity decline disasterously in any attempts to move to a Web or GUI interface. And with these informational/highly transactional sessions likely increasing in various organizational settings, the Zombies of UI are likely not only to persist but … well … proliferate. So when Apple or Microsoft or Macromedia or whomever talk about 3D and transparent dialogs and virtual spaces and rich clients , ask them how they are dealing with the Zombies of UI. And remember its RIP with rip and replace!