HTML5 is the new standard for web design and will have a big impact on PLM as well. It is actually the combination of the previous HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.1 standards and still under review from the internet gods of the W3C. It is intended to replace the previous standards and provide the backbone for Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 applications over the next decade or two. It was started in about 2008 and the specification was more or less finished this past year. It will not become fully mature until about 2014 which explains why it is not yet prevalent across all browser clients. 

Refer to the table below from http://html5test.com:

You will see where the highest possible score is 500, and Google Crome and Firefox 9 lead the browser race with Opera and Safari close behind. Although IE9 is a dismal 5th, IE 10 gets a 306 rating for the moment which shows that Microsoft has given this significant priority in their development processes.

Refer to the graphic below to see what HTML promises:

There are loads of standards here. The one I wanted to focus briefly on is the tag which is more or less universally supported in HTML5 implementations. This tag allows developers to embed viewers into web pages similar to how Flash was used by Adobe. It is interesting to note that even Adobe has dropped Flash development for mobile devices in November 2011 to concentrate also on HTML5.

What does this mean for PLM? Well, first off, it will be easier to embed multimedia and 3D directly into webpages. The standard also allows for rich caches on the browser client meaning that more advanced controls like what we see in .Net to be natively deployed across multiple browsers (the key drawback to .Net being its IE-only focus). This could allow for immersive 3D searching and editing directly from the browser, which in some cases mitigates the need for separate software. It will never completely replace rich clients but could make "webtop" clients far more interactive and dynamic. Naturally, other features in HTML5 also enhance capabilities around social networking so that design collaboration with suppliers and the extended enterprise will also benefit.

DS R&D is actively investigating how best to leverage HTML5 in our products, so you can expect exciting changes to come. 

For more information, Wikipedia's article is excellent. For true geeks, the full specification from W3C for HTML5 is here.