Microsoft’s Silverlight breaks the news of the week. Launched on April 15, it is already called “an Adobe (Macromedia) Flash killer”. Well, it sounds a little bit overconfident. Actually, Microsoft just tries to collide with Adobe by grabbing a niche from Flash. The question is will it really succeed in becoming the only winner. You want the answer? “Doubtful!”

Silverlight aims at RIAs development market and will be mashed up with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth here and then, but it won’t replace Adobe’s Flash. In this “war”, Microsoft is not the leader; it is the follower. It’s too late to set new standards. Maybe, a piece of a market will be a reward, but not the whole game. However, I agree with Ryan Stewart about the situation in general:

Of course, those two companies are starting to get into each other’s areas, but in the grand scheme of things, that isn’t really important. We’re seeing a definite blending of the software world where being “on the desktop” or “on the web” doesn’t really matter. People are just excited about building engaging user experiences, and they want technologies that make that easy to do and in a way that is good for users. […] As both companies develop tools and ecosystems around Rich Internet Applications, developers, users, and designers win.

Well, Microsoft’s Virtual Earth didn’t kill Google Maps yet, so it won’t kill Adobe Flash. Moreover, it won’t be the only winner, either. “The Only Winners” are we.

Filed under: Enterprise 2.0, Mashups, Rich Internet Applications | No Comments »

David S. Linthicum has recently written a comprehensive article about Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). He claims four reasons to move toward RIA:

1. Leverage dynamic behavior at the user interface
2. Loosely couple the presentation layer and logic layer
3. Provide both connected and unconnected modes of usage
4. Improve integration for data residing locally and remotely.

And then, later in the text, he adds:

“The reasons you use RIAs are many, but most find that the ability to get the value of software without having to go through an installation procedure to be a huge benefit. You always have the best and most current version of the software, and you don’t have to update or maintain the software through its lifecycle. This is the value of SaaS as well as RIA.”

In other words, RIA intersects Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology and brings all its benefits.

However, I would lay the emphasis on another important reason, ‘Saving costs and increasing revenues’, which is not obvious sometimes. Technical benefits result in reduced bandwidth usage and so on, but the main point here is interoperability. RIAs allow vendors, customers and partners to collaborate in more effective way.

First, RIA integrates heterogeneous interfaces and reduces iterations in business processes, which increases productivity. Data integration provided by RIA technology enables users to interact with distributed applications no matter where they are located.

Second, RIA provides end-users with enhanced interfaces, which allows embedding more features and capabilities for company’s customers. For instance, RIAs help e-commerce clients control the steps of their orders, as well as simultaneously calculate shopping costs and make more informed decisions. These features allow businesses to add value to their services, reduce process abandonment and improve competitiveness or loyalty.

“The reasons are many”, but it’s all about the money, in the end. Anyway, David S. Linthicum is right, “What you see in your browsers will change forever, and more enterprise applications will be Rich Internet Applications.”

Filed under: Business Intelligence, Rich Internet Applications | No Comments »