Adobe Fires a Shot Across The Bow

For those new to Rich Internet Applications, there is a War of the Platforms taking place right now. Users are demanding more intuitive applications, increased functionality and freedom from the restrictions of the browser, There are 3 companies poised to offer solutions, Microsoft, Sun and Adobe. Adobe, in my opinion, has the most compelling, broadest reaching solutions. The most significant launch in Adobe history took place last night at 12:30 EST. This morning, at 8:35 AM, Matt Chotin announced the release of the AIR and Flex 3 platforms at the 360|Flex Keynote. As a matter of fact, I am sitting in the Keynote right now, blogging this. (all mistakes, typos, etc are mine)

The products launched are:

• AIR 1.0
• Flex 3 SDK
• Flex Builder 3 Standard and Pro
• BlazeDS
• http://opensource.adobe.com
• http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK
• http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/blazeds/

One of the more interesting releases is the Flex Open Source SDk which includes MXML and ActionScript 3, the Flex Framework and class library and the command-line compiler. This allows software companies to develop tools for building Flex and AIR applications. While everyone agrees Flex Builder 3 is a very impressive IDE, competition in the space is always welcome.

Also the open source Data Services package BlazeDS, is another compelling release. This package consists of Messaging RPC Services Service Adapters Proxy Service is also a very welcome release. This infrastructure adds trememdous value to applications built on the Flex platform and being open source, any platform can utilize the functionality without having to reinvent the wheel. For example, here are three of my favorite ways Data Services improves the architecture of an RIA: binary data serialization significantly reduces the size of data packets sent from the server to the client. automatic data type conversion eliminates a whole class of mundane, error prone programming. ability to push data from the server to the client and enable real-time data functionality.

Much anticipated, AIR, (Adobe Integrated Runtime), is also released today. AIR gives offline abilities to RIAs as well as interaction with the local file system, integrated SQLite databases and empowers feature-rich RIAs. AIR is a powerful platform that will really help usher in the new era of RIAs. For more information on AIR, check out the AIR home page at Adobe.com

The RIA War keeps heating up...