A few people have commented here on how Web browsers can be limiting environments for client/server apps. Another suggested supplying your own client to users. What I'm wondering is.. is there another 'standard' for a remote interface standard?

That is, it's not a Web browser, but a kinda 'app browser' which can connect to remote applications, receives markup, and then renders the app in the local machine using the native OS widgets. Then all data input and output goes back and forth to the server (if necessary) and on screen data can be updated, etc, but not requiring page updates all the time (unless you change view).

I know you could produce something like this with Perl/TK, but I was wondering if work has already been done in this area, or if there are any standards.