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Adobe is no stranger to RIA developers, and their recent release is another move in the right direction. Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) has sparked discussions among developers and at Microsoft, which has been courting Adobe devotees with Silverlight, a tool to compete with Flash technology. AIR was tested throughout 2007 under the codename Apollo, and the 1.0 version was announced in late February along with a new release of Flex. So how will Microsoft’s forays into RIA technology stack up with AIR?

AIR is a cross-operating system runtime which can integrate with existing HTML/AJAX, Flex, or Flash apps that can be deployed not only to the web, but also to a desktop environment. AIR applications are meant to be versatile, reaching users who rely on desktop technology and those who have tasted the proverbial web-based “Kool-Aid”. As Adobe’s website points out, “You can use your existing web development resources to create engaging, branded applications that run on all major desktop operating systems.” Indeed, while AIR runs on Windows and Mac, Adobe is planning to work on Linux support for those users, with a projected availability in the second half of 2008. Best of all, like Flex, AIR is free.

Reviews are positive thus far, and it seems as though AIR will give Adobe a boost against rival Silverlight. As Forrester Research analyst Jeffrey Hammond told eWeek, “They’ve done a lot of thinking about security in particular. That’s critical when you start to break down the barriers between the browser and the desktop…I think AIR and Flex 3.0 get the edge over Silverlight 1.0 when it comes to depth of programming model and developer capability.” Other users are just as excited. One blogger writes, “Some of my favorite words to hear these days from startups are ‘we’re working on/have an AIR app.’”

AIR is a step towards integrating desktop applications and rich internet applications. This will benefit users in several ways: not only will AIR allow RIA developers to add some beauty and cross-platform meat to their products, but it will also bring some of the power of the web cloud to desktops. It bypasses the limitations of web browsers, allowing offline functionality while still maintaining the speed and data processing skills of purely web-based applications. A good example of this can be found in eBay Desktop, a glorified widget of sorts that allows users to monitor auctions in real time (without refreshing), list their items in an offline environment, and upload directly to eBay. Adobe has also made other AIR applications available for test spins on their website.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about both Silverlight and AIR is the attempt both products making to reach out to developers and designers alike. While Microsoft products typically appeal more to developers and Adobe tends to attract the designer pool, both AIR and Silverlight are trying to marry the two communities. As RedMonk analyst Michael Coté pointed out to eWeek, “There’s this idea of a designer/developer out there that we’ve been chasing forever: a person who can not only write clean code but make the result look good and be usable.” Microsoft, Adobe, and others who produce tools for RIA companies are trying to reach this mythical persona.

Perhaps the combined designer/developer persona does exists, but I suspect that releases like AIR and Silverlight are more likely to create this community than to find it lurking somewhere. With the integration of technologies like Flex, Flash, and AIR on the Adobe end and Silverlight, Visual Studio, and Expression on the Microsoft side, developers are becoming designers and designers are becoming developers. In order to compete with the thousands of applications out there, companies are having to use all the tools in the bag, and bag keeps getting bigger and bigger. The winner of this competition between Adobe and Microsoft is not really the developers or designers, but the end user, who is treated to a functional, usable, and beautiful product.

Monday, March 10th, 2008 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

By Haley January Eckels