Adobe worked closely with the company to create what it believes is an app that pushes the envelope with regard to what can be done with Adobe technology. We believe there are a number of trends in play here that go beyond Adobe as well and are likely to be key features for many apps in the future.

Matrix lets users combine their own uploaded data in CSV format with historical data compiled by Morgan Stanley. Sharp looking data visualization options are baked in to help with decision making. Real time data is fed into a dashboard type environment as well.

Rich Internet Applications

Rich Internet Apps (RIA's) are particularly well suited to data-intensive operations if they are constructed well. Users get the responsiveness of a desktop app combined with live updates from the cloud. The most popular consumer-level RIAs are Adobe AIR Twitter clients like Tweetdeck and Seesmic - but imagine these kinds of apps built by the powerful development teams working in financial services firms.

Mixed Human and Machine Communication

The Matrix product combines human-curated content chosen by Morgan Stanley's employees with algorithmically filtered content from the raging river of news and financial information that threatens to overwhelm users.

That content is delivered in a "news feed" type interface that looks a little like Facebook or Twitter, but where message headlines can be expanded with a click for reading and viewing multimedia.

Additionally, all of those pieces of content are accompanied by an IM-like presence status for the person who added the content to the system. That's hot stuff - like the human component of the real time web, augmented by data. We're very curious to see how well this can scale, but generally speaking - presence information online is something we really wish more apps supported.

The Matrix microsite is over the top with Flash and audio, but it's definitely worth a look. The product is is a fascinating look into the future. We hope that institutional investors don't get to have all the fun.

Where the Curl platform itself competes with Flex and Silverlight, Curl Nitro competes more directly with Adobe AIR, Mozilla Prism, Google Gears, and other applications that allow content from the web to run on the desktop while also providing asynchronous communication with various back-end services.

This recently released Nitro demo app called CurlGraph was designed by Manuel Lima, the founder of VisualComplexity.com (our coverage) and it allows you to visualize a circle of up to 128 friends from your Facebook account. By examining the ring of friends and the arcs that indicate the relationships between them, you can visualize what your personal social graph looks like.

Of course, in order to run the app, you'll need to have Curl Nitrol Beta RTE already installed. You can then download the app, CurlGraph, from here and the code from here (note: zip file).

When installing the app, the dialog box looks very familiar - much like Adobe AIR - and the process was just as easy. You login to Facebook via the app and then it will graph out all of your Facebook friend connections.

Fighting For the Desktop

While the app itself is an impressive way to showcase Curl's ability to support a visually engaging desktop application, the company itself is going to be up against some tough competition to gain a foothold on the desktop.

At the moment there's the popularity of Adobe AIR's desktop widgets to deal with, especially among early adopters and other enthusiasts, not to mention Silverlight and other players in the RIA game, including OpenLaszlo, NexaWeb Enterprise 2.0, Dojo, Altio Live, UltraLightClient and JavaFX.

Curl's best bet may be with their enterprise efforts or with their open source web services development kit (WSDK), shipped earlier this year as a part of the Curl Rich Internet Application Platform 6.0. But even then, they're up against Microsoft's Silverlight offering which was ported to Linux by some Novell developers as Moonlight.

Fighting big companies like Microsoft and Adobe isn't easy for a smaller shop, nor is competing against JavaFX and others in the enterprise. Yet that doesn't mean that Curl isn't trying. Curl's VP of Developer Relations, Richard Monson-Haefel, left a comment here on RWW not long ago which was very critical of Adobe AIR's security model, a subject recently noted by Adobe platform evangelist Ryan Stewart on his blog.

Stewart references a recent presentation by Ethan Malasky called Developing Secure AIR Applications, and then says that "security is one of the things that gets talked a lot about with regards to AIR and the team spent a huge, huge amount of time thinking about the security mode."   (Slides from the presentation are below).

If the Curl platform is truly more secure, then they may be able to find success in the enterprise space, an area which AIR and Silverlight are both trying to reach now. However, Curl will have to be up for the battle because those two companies have a lot more resources to fight aggressively for RIA marketshare.

Oliver Goldman recently posted an entry on his Adobe company blog, declaring:

"Adobe AIR supports enterprise deployment. There; I've said it. We've had a bit of trouble getting this message out, so I wanted to be clear about this right up front."

Curious about what kind of apps were really being used in the enterprise, we contacted Adobe to get some details. What we found out was that several big name companies have already starting using AIR on the corporate desktop, using apps to provide everything from real-time informational updates to employee directories. Below is a look at some of the apps in use today.

Enterprise AIR Apps

Employee Directory

Of course, one of the first deployments of AIR is going to be at Adobe, where they've been dog-fooding their own platform for a while now. At Adobe, one of the apps that they use is an employee directory which shows employee names, titles, details, photos, presence, and where that person is in the company hierarchy. Companies wishing to build their own employee directory app can use the sample app available here to do so.

Employee Directory Sample

Sales Team Apps

Another application used by Adobe and others is an app built for the sales team which allows them to enter customer issues, prioritize them, escalate them, and track them. The beauty of this app is its capability for offline mode - something which would benefit any sales team. When offline, sales professionals can enter in issues, and when they're back online those issues get synced back to the company's servers. To get started building an application for a sales team at their own company, a developer can access the Salesbuilder app available here.

Salesbuilder Sample App

Executive Dashboard

At Sharp in Japan, company employees use an executive dashboard built on AIR that shows things like incoming orders, inventory levels in different warehouses and factories, and the throughput of that inventory through every stage of the production process. (No screenshot available)

Customer Account Updates

In the finance industry, the international corporation that is Deutsche Bank has deployed Adobe AIR to their desktops which lets employees actively monitor activity on their customers' accounts. The AIR solution provided a better alternative to what they had used prior - a browser-based application that required hitting the "refresh" button to see updates. Said Mike LaCava, Director and Global Head of Internet Channels in Global Transaction Banking at Deutsche Bank, AIR let them "leverage the power of the desktop and the Web to immediately deliver customized desktop notifications that will keep our clients well-informed and empowered while they carry out their daily activities."

NASDAQ Market Replay

Another real-time use of AIR in the finance industry comes from NASDAQ, where an AIR app called NASDAQ Market Replay lets financial professionals replay market activity in detail at any point in time - even drilling down into an individual stock to view its historical performance. Here, AIR shows its ability to work with an extremely large data set, which is something that wouldn't be quite as instantaneous in a browser.

NASDAQ Market Replay

Apps for Salesforce

SaaS technology and services company, Model Metrics, has released an on-demand AIR application that leverages salesforce.com's new PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) Force.com to build an app called Accelerate4Pharma. This app is designed for the pharmaceutical marketing, sales, and customer service processes. Again, it was the online/offline switching capabilities that prompted the company to choose Adobe AIR and Flex.

Model Metrics Accelerate4Pharma

While those are just a sampling of apps, there are still other companies using Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR, including: Atlantic Records; BBC; Business Objects; FedEx Corp.; Loyalty Management Group (Nectar); Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group's Neopets; and Wilson Sporting Goods.

Sample & Featured Apps

For any company wanting to deploy AIR apps internally, the Adobe Developer Center features code and sample apps for numerous applications like Lineup, an app that lets you browse your Exchange calendar; S3E, an app that provides a simple user interface for reading, writing, and deleting files stored on Amazon's S3 data storage services; Timeslide, an app that delivers notifications to the desktop; and more.

You can also get access to completed, business-ready AIR apps like Agile Agenda, a project manager application; SearchCoders, a forum reader, blog reader, chat client, notepad, and bookmark manager designed specifically for developers looking for Flex-related information; among others.

Deploying AIR

For I.T. admins, getting the Adobe AIR apps to the desktop is as easy to do as using whatever deployment tools are already in place, like IBM Tivoli or Microsoft SMS. The redistribution site has more details on this.

These installations can even be customized in three different ways: 1) Enable/disable automatic AIR updates (good for locked-down environments), 2) Enable/disable the installation of AIR applications (to limit users to the apps already on their machines), and 3) Enable/disable the installation of AIR applications with unknown publishers (to limit users to only installing apps from known publishers.) More information is available in this whitepaper. (P.S. On the last page is an email address where you can bug Adobe for GPOs, which aren't available yet).

As far as making any pre-built apps for SMBs available, Adobe isn't there yet, and they may never be - they typically just provide technologies for others to build upon. However, there is a chance for seeing more productivity apps in the future in the same vein as the current acrobat.com AIR app (which, by the way, is really worth the download).

Acrobat.com AIR App

UPDATE: Adobe AIR for I.T. Administrators just launched today.

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• Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 (Q1CY08 with limited (non commercial) Go-Live) -- this was released at Mix ‘08 in early March
• Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 (Q2CY08 with Go-Live)
• Silverlight 2.0 RTM (Summer 2008) -- Exact timing TBD
• Silverlight v.next -- We are working on a v.Next plan and have nothing to announce at this time
• Silverlight for mobile -- No date available

Thapliyal also promised backwards compatibility between Silverlight 1.0 and 2.0 and that the Beta 2 of the second version of Microsoft's Flash-alike will be very similar to the final version. Beta 2 is espected at the end of May.

Interestingly, Thapliyal takes a slight shot at Adobe in the Silverlight 2.0 FAQ, with a question asking how Silverlight's market penetration compares to Adobe's claim of 98.8% of all Internet users. "We’ve announced that we’re at about 1.5 million downloads per day at the moment. The problem with putting out some % values like Adobe do is that it is hard to be accurate and hard to verify," Thapliyal writes, which is perhaps an indication that Microsoft doesn't buy Adobe's published numbers.

Right now, Silverlight's main strength has been video, and Microsoft's skill in forging corporate partnerships -- like the ones it has formed with the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, NBC, and Nokia -- should help push the client out to users. Silverlight 2.0 promises to integrate more of the WPF UI programming controls, as well as other bits which could make it a better option for Rich Internet App creation than the first version. It will be interesting to see what sort of things are made with Silverlight after the final release of version 2.0 ships, and if it can make a dent in Flash's dominating marketshare.

For those of you who don't know, the Chumby Touchscreen Internet gadget is a popular...and darned cute...gadget that can be customized with various channels that feature widgets, videos, feeds, games, and more.

To use your Chumby, you plug it in and configure it to work with your Wi-Fi network. Once that's done, you log on to Chumby.com and customize yours with the widgets of your choosing.

These widgets can be anything - web clips, RSS feeds, games, videos, Tweets, news, weather, a clock, photos, or a million other things. Some of the widgets come from deals made with content providers, like the widgets available from CBS, MTV Networks, MySpace, The Weather Channel Interactive, AOL's SHOUTcast and Scripps Networks.

The Chumby also has speakers, so you can hook up the Chumby to your iPod via the USB connector in the back and play your iTunes playlists with it.

Made for Hackers

However, what's really great about the Chumby is that the device is designed for customization. Want to hack, mod, extend, or improve Chumby? Have at it!

The Chumby lets you upgrade your Chumby in four different ways: developers customize the software, build Flash widgets, or even hack the hardware. Arts-and-crafts types can also mess around with the Chumby in their own way, decorating it or putting in a case of their own design.

Software: The Chumby is a Linux-based, open-source platform which means developers can do nearly anything with it. A quick glance on the Chumby forum shows posts about Python & Ruby for Chumby, Java for Chumby, Perl for Chumby, MTASC for Chumby, and much more.

Widgets: For Flash animators, the Chumby can be a showcase for your talents. Artists can upload widgets to the Chumby site and share them with the community so others can add them to their own Chumbys. These widgets are the bread-and-butter of Chumby, bringing most of the cool stuff like news feeds, videos, games, viewers, utilities, and other fun and/or useful tools to the device.

Hardware: The Chumby is made for tinkerers. You can open up the Chumby, take it apart, upgrade it, add to it, and mod it. They even tell you how and provide extensive documentation.

Crafts: You don't have to be a computer nerd to enjoy modding your Chumby, though. Even artistic types can enjoy making Chumby their own. The Chumby is designed so that the core electronics can be easily removed from its casing, letting you create your own look for Chumby without having to write code. See?

Modded Chumby on Chumby's flickr Group

You can even embed a Chumby gadget on your own web site to show people what your Chumby looks like:

Virtual Chumby

Now, don't you want one?

Author's Note: I have a Chumby and I love it.

Lots more AIR apps are coming soon and that's great news. Some of my favorite words to hear these days from startups are "we're working on/have an AIR app."

Much of this conversation is based on my experience with Twitter clients built on AIR. Many of the leading ways to use Twitter outside of the browser are AIR apps and it's a great way to get a taste of the possibilities - the lightweight communication of Twitter works very well with the lightweight beauty of AIR.

There are frameworks competing with AIR and there have been similar attempts in the past, but people are building useful and attractive AIR apps now. I think this is a framework we're going to see a whole lot more of in the coming months.

The Best Things About AIR

1. Cross Platform

AIR lets developers write code once and offer their applications to both Windows and Mac users. If that was the only part of this announcement, it would be exciting.

2. It's beautiful

AIR lets developers use Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML and AJAX to create desktop apps. That means no more ugly desktop software! AIR apps combine the beauty of Flash with the responsiveness that AJAX brings to the web and that desktop software almost always offers.

In addition to the gorgeous Twitter clients built on AIR, there are more serious AIR apps that leverage the same beauty and usability for more serious applications. See, for example, the company Acesis, which offers an AIR for the capture of structured medical data.

3. It's not in the browser

The browser is great but how often does yours get overloaded? To say that the web based future will be confined to the browser would be pure folly. I want web enabled apps that I can use outside of and during my otherwise frenetic bopping around web pages in my browser. The fact that some AIR apps are easy to set persistently above all other apps on your desktop makes it all the easier to use them throughout your workflow inside the browser and elsewhere.

4. Thermo

Adobe demonstrated an upcoming design framework called Thermo in October that can be used to create Flex apps for the web or desktop. Thermo lets developers easily integrate Photoshop items into the user interface of their apps. The company describes this feature as the option to "Turn artwork from Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or Fireworks directly into functional components that use the original artwork as a 'skin.'"

This means big improvements in user experience and visual appeal of apps. Put those puppies in AIR and it's going to be exciting.

5. It combines the responsiveness of the desktop with the cloud of the web.

It's not about a Web Operating System or anything that will replace your local desktop, it's about combining some of the best traits of the desktop with the cloud connectivity of the web in individual apps that live on your desktop.

The combined wisdom of the personal computer with the visions of the thin client or web-based world, is smarter than any picture of the future based solely on any of those paradigms seperately.

Now that AIR is in production, we're going to see a whole bunch of dazzling and mainstream AIR apps made available. Here are some resources you can use to dig deeper and follow this trend as it develops.

Resources:

• Live coverage of Adobe Engage conference

  Robert Scoble's using the Qik mobile video platform to broadcast live from the event. It's like a free ticket!



• Del.icio.us Popular AIR

  Despite the fact that unclean air kills scores of people who try to breathe it every day and gives little kids asthma and stuff - the most popular items tagged "air" in del.icio.us aren't about air quality. They are about Adobe AIR - and there's some good stuff there. In addition to Popular, see also the "all" page.

• AIR Apps Wiki

  With more than 120 examples linked here, this wiki is a much more exhaustive resource than the official Adobe AIR marketplace.

• RIA Weekly- Podcast
  Redmonk's Michael Coté and Adobe's Ryan Stewart talk "Rich Internet Apps" (web/destop hybrids) with developers and news, and they don't just limit the discussion to Adobe platforms. Almost all the Redmonk Radio podcasts are worth a regular listen.
• Adobe's Blogs

  There are only so many company blogs out there that you'd want to read for fun. Some of Adobe's fall into that category.

Along with AIR, Adobe is also announcing the final release of Flex 3 and the Flex Builder. Flex is an open source framework for building applications on the Adobe Flash and AIR platforms, while Flex Builder is an IDE for Flex. The Flex 3 SDK comes out of beta today and is released under the Mozilla Public License on the Flex web site.

Flex, Flash, and AIR form the cornerstone of Adobe's "Platform for Rich Internet Apps," a complete end-to-end solution for creating and deploying RIAs to the web and desktop. This has been a big year for the RIA platform at Adobe, according to Adrian Ludwig, the group manager in the company's platform and development unit.

Ludwig told us that 2007 was a "real turning point for the industry" and that Adobe saw broad based adoption of their RIA platform. Oracle, for example, is using Flex to create interface elements for applications, while Adobe has worked with BEA to comarket Flex Builder along with BEA's own developer tools. The wide adoption of Adobe's RIA technologies "was confirmation of the value that these types of applications have," said Ludwig.

At DEMO this year, Ludwig told us, there were three companies whose entire business was built on Adobe AIR. Considering AIR debuted just over a year ago itself at DEMO (as Apollo), that is fairly amazing. In just a year, Adobe's runtime has matured enough that entrepreneurs are willing to build entire businesses around it -- even when AIR has been in beta until today. "That, combined with our commitment not just to innovation, but to open source technologies where it makes sense," said Ludwig, "I think that's going to really further innovation and advancements in the RIA space."

Along with the new releases of Flex and AIR, a number of companies are announcing public releases of AIR applications, including Nickelodeon, eBay, AOL, Nasdaq, and the New York Times Company.

Adobe is also releasing the final first version of Blaze DS under the GPL license. Blaze DS was announced two months ago and is a server side remoting and messaging technology that was previously only available as part of the LifeCycle suite of products. We wrote about Blaze DS in December.

The attraction to Adobe's platform makes a lot of sense. They offer an end-to-end solution, and Flex and AIR makes the question of desktop vs. online a deployment decision, and not a development decision. Write the application once in Flex, and deploy to the web or to the desktop with AIR with very few code changes. That sort of flexibility is very attractive to many developers.

RIAs in the enterprise; source: Forrester

The report states that today, enterprise portals and Microsoft Office are the most common front ends "through which content, collaboration, enterprise applications, and other services are delivered to workers in a seamless, contextual way." However, says Forrester, RIA technology is improving that user experience and is being increasingly used by mid to large enterprises. The report states:

"Because RIAs improve the way people find and manipulate content, complete transactions, and consume multimedia content, these technologies are ideal for improving the user experience for information workers. Moving forward, RIA technologies like Adobe Flash and Flex, Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), Ajax, the Curl RIA Platform, Laszlo Systems OpenLaszlo and Webtop, Microsoft Silverlight, Nexaweb’s Enterprise Web 2.0 Suite, Oracle WebCenter, and Sun JavaFX will be used to augment or even replace traditional enterprise portals and Microsoft Office as IW front ends."

The report goes on to say that RIA-based Information Workplaces create a "seamless, individualized, and visual" environment for information workers.

A lot of the report is based on data gained from vendors with a horse in the RIA race; including Adobe, Microsoft, Curl, Laszlo Systems, among others. Plus information gleaned from RIA specialists. So we should take the findings with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, the amount of RIA activity happening on the Web today suggests that the enterprise will indeed be mined. Just as consumer web apps have made their way into the Enterprise over the past few years, so will RIA infiltrate the office. It's also worth pointing out that Google, with its army of AJAX office apps, will be among the RIA providers vying to be a front end in the enterprise.