At our event in Seattle we got to talk with a lot of developers about Adobe AIR. One of the interesting things is that we had a very JavaScript heavy crowd there which indicates to me that Adobe AIR is getting a lot of interest in broader web circles. It was also surprising to listen to how people want to use AIR and how they see it as fitting into their web application.

One thing people talked about was using AIR to replace a current desktop application entirely. Usually this is a desktop application that currently hooks into web services and there is a web site that gives people another way to interact with the services but development and usage is primarily driven by the desktop client. What makes Adobe AIR compelling for this situation is that desktop development can still be the technology driver, but it’s easy to add features to the web site as you add them to the client. It cuts down on development time and keeps the web experience and the desktop experience in sync.

Another use case is for people who just want to extend their web application a little bit on to the desktop. This is a lot like what Pownce is doing and is one of my favorite Adobe AIR use cases. In this model people don’t want to port their entire application to the desktop but rather bits and pieces of functionality that can only be done with desktop development but will ultimately enhance the web application. As a result, everything ties back to the site and the desktop application acts as more of a hook than anything else with a subset of the web’s features but with the power of a regular desktop application. Being able to do all of this with the same skill set makes it much more accessible to web shops than it was before.

Adobe AIR is a testament to how deep and rich the web is. I think most of us at Adobe see this as a sister technology to your web application and a way to expand what you’re currently giving your users. That’s going to take a lot of forms from porting the whole web application to the desktop down to creating a small widget-like application that brings bits of data to the users desktop. Adobe AIR gives you a lot of options so it’s up to you to figure out what the best fit will be for your application. If you’re in the area for one of our events, we’d love to talk to you about it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 7:16 am and is filed under Adobe AIR, JavaScript, onair2007.