(FORTUNE Magazine) – How do you write a column that says what everybody else has been saying for years and make it sound like a revelation? I'm not sure, but I'm going to give it a try. See, I'm a little slow. But I think I am beginning to see why we may not need personal computer software anymore.

I've been resisting this idea for years. First came Larry Ellison with his ridiculous notion of network computers, or NCs, which were predicated on the idea that you don't even need a hard disk and could use the network to store everything. Then Scott McNealy modified the idea of network computers: It was okay to have a hard disk to keep your stuff, but the software would run on the network. These guys were mostly motivated by trying to find a reasonable way to eliminate Microsoft.

But a lot of other, saner people have been talking about information appliances. Certainly the PalmPilot has sold millions of units. And companies are introducing a bonanza of products--cellular telephones and cameras, to name a couple--that capitalize on digital technology. But these devices aren't replacing the basic functions of a personal computer.

My resistance has been based in part on the very success of personal computers. You don't create a new industry and sell more than 100 million computers by fooling customers. So the idea that PCs are the result of a plot of monopolistic vendors like Microsoft and Intel to hoodwink customers into buying overly complex, hard-to-use products is a crock. Customers really, really like what computers do for them, and that's why they have bought so many of them and have been willing to put up with their complexity.

My resistance has also been based on the belief that you can't get the rich functions people want on PCs without writing very complex software. I've watched vendors struggle with writing programs for PCs for the past 20 years. I've watched them try to write simple programs. And I've watched them try to write complicated programs. The result is that we've ended up with a pretty clearly defined set of rich functions: processing words, managing spreadsheets, making presentations, managing e-mail and other personal information, and storing financial information. Indeed, the newest function is the Web browser, a program that lets you surf, organize, and manage your interaction with the World Wide Web.

But the World Wide Web introduced a new element, one that could change the way we use computers enough to make it worth going back and starting over. This is the revelation. I'm beginning to believe that maybe everything we want computers to do can be done through the Web browser. Everything.

Right now, as I write this column on my computer, I have four programs open: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook (which has four subprograms that I keep open all the time: e-mail, calendar, contacts, and notes), Intuit Quicken, and Netscape Navigator. (Yes, I know that there are alternatives to each of these, and that I didn't mention the one you use.) The first three are classic PC programs: complex, powerful, feature-rich. They take time to learn and can handle certain tasks in great depth.

The fourth, Netscape Navigator, is also a classic PC program in the sense that it runs on your personal computer and is complex, powerful, feature-rich software. What's different is that it gives you access to a new set of programs that don't reside on your personal computer. Indeed, the prospect is that you might be able to get all the other software--word processing, personal information, and financial management--just by browsing to a Website and pulling the programs to your machine as you need them. And that's the key to this change I'm talking about.

One of my portfolio companies, Visto Corp., in Mountain View, Calif., has been a leader of this change: It makes a suite of applications that mirror the functions of Microsoft Outlook, including e-mail, calendar, contacts, and notes, as well as a few that Outlook doesn't have. Visto started out making a Website where you could store your data from Microsoft Outlook, then copy it to another computer or access it from any computer with a Web browser and Internet connection. In other words, Visto started out assuming that people would keep using the software on their own PCs for real work. But something happened on the way to the Web: Visto's customers used the applications on the Web. And one thing I've learned about business: When your customers like what you do, don't complain that it's not what you intended!

Visto isn't the only company where this is happening, just the one I happen to be most closely involved with. (Jump and MagicalDesk.com also allow you to download similar software from their sites.) But now that I've had my eyes opened, I'm beginning to see it everywhere. It started with companies like Hotmail and Mail.com, which offer Web-based e-mail, along with directory services to find people or companies or things. Then search engines morphed into portals chock-full of everything from maps to games. Now a raft of companies serve up Web-based calendar software; financial services like stock quotes, portfolio management, and trading; travel bookings and vacation planning; banking; and on and on. Suddenly, I'm thinking it's not going to be long before I can do everything on the Web that I can do on my personal computer. Everything!

So this is the new world. Being a PC bigot who started with personal computing in 1981 and really liked what happened afterward, it's hard to imagine. But perhaps someone out there is working on a word processor that I can use through my Web browser--not one that works just like Microsoft Word, but one that takes advantage of the medium and offers a new kind of word processing. We already have the Web-based calendar, e-mail, contact, and financial software. And I've seen Web-based presentation software.

In addition to the software that is being written for Web-based applications, we are finally getting real high-speed access to the World Wide Web. Storing documents and files on a Web server is no longer that much slower than storing them on my hard disk.

Only one problem remains: How do you use the Web when you're on an airplane or traveling around? Wireless modems are still very expensive and very slow (compared with high-speed Net access). That's a tough one: Perhaps the solution is that you just use whatever computer you find yourself close to: stand-alone kiosks in airports, PCs that come in your hotel room, colleagues' machines in remote offices.

I don't know exactly how it happens, but I am beginning to think that we face the possibility of a new kind of computing. And that makes this a very interesting time indeed.

STEWART ALSOP is a partner with New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm. Except as noted, neither he nor his partnership has a financial interest in the companies mentioned. Alsop may be reached at stewart_alsop@fortunemail.com; the column may be bookmarked at www.fortune.com/technology/alsop/.