Adobe rolls out Betas

Adobe Systems announced the public beta of Adobe Flex 3, Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) formerly code-named Apollo, Adobe Builder Beta and Flash Player update. With the new Flex and AIR Abode is pushing itself up in the rich Internet applications (RIAs) competition.

Adobe Flex 3 Beta:

The new version of cross platform, free open source framework for creating RIA adds rich new UI capabilities, enhanced developer productivity, desktop deployment and enterprise testing and performance tools. The Flex 3 public beta also marks the first significant deliverable for the open source Flex project, beginning with the availability of nightly builds and a public bug database. Some of the key changes in Flex 3 from its predecessors are:

• Enhancement to designer/developer workflow.
• New Containers (mx:ConstraintRow and mx:ConstraintColumn).
• Code enhancement include: faster compilation, compiler class caching, deeper language intelligence for AS3/MXML/CSS, Code Search, Refactoring, Code Outline, Profiling, Profiling Live Memory Data, Enhanced Module support, and Multiple SDK support.
• New Widgets, Components and Classes.
• Smaller SWF file.

Ted Patrick had a week long blog entries on the new Flex version. Each of the above mentioned features is explained in detail.

Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR):

Apollo Runtime becomes Adobe Integrated Runtime. The cross-operating system runtime was code-named Apollo. It allows developers to use their existing web development skills to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop. Now AIR is set to become a major runtime that all the desktops will have. AIR will also pay a major roll in RIA, mashup softwares and Web 2.0 and beyond.

Adobe Flex Builder 3 Public Beta:

Flex Builder 3 Public Beta is available for download in Adobe Labs. This early public prerelease version begins a new, more transparent product development process from Adobe, with frequent, regular access to early builds and greater insight provided into the feature roadmap and planning process. The Flex Builder 3 beta release will provide you with an opportunity to explore powerful new features. Some of the new major features include:

• Support for the new Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR).
• Code Refactoring.
• Memory and performance profiling.
• SWF file size reduction through persistent framework caching.

You can also view the complete detailed specs for Flex Builder 3.

Flash Player 9 Update 3 Beta 1:

The new Flash player is code-named "FrogStar". It adds support for caching the Flex Framework within the Flash Player. Moving forward the Flex Framework will be cached within the Flash Player dramatically reducing the size of the output SWF files. SWF files will contain only your code and Flex Preloader containing the caching/loading logic. Some of the new capabilities of Flash Player are:

• Flex Framework to be cached for use across domains.
• The Player Cache will support Flex 3.0 and future versions of the Flex Framework.
• Flex Framework now supports Runtime Shared Libraries (RSL's).

Conclusion:

So with these new features, Adobe is trying to capture the market which other Ajax libraries have. The size of SWF has been an issue for some time. I know some of the projects which opted other technologies like Openlazlo and others due to the size of SWF file.

Another important factor is with Sun’s JRE. Unless Sun reduces the size of JRE and make it more portable, its new RIA technology JavaFX will find it difficult to compete. Compared to Sun Micorsystems, Microsoft seems to be making ground with its new Ajax projects and other .Net enhancements.

Apollo , WPF/E and Dekoh a comparison

Adobe has come up with a innovative cross-OS desktop platform called Apollo and definitely evey innovation is copied,cloned or imitated. That how I see Mircosoft's WPF/E and a new product called Dekoh. Now lets look how all these products are defined by their creators.

Apollo: "Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop.
Apollo enables developers to create applications that combine the benefits of web applications – network and user connectivity, rich media content, ease of development, and broad reach – with the strengths of desktop applications – application interactions, local resource access, personal settings, powerful functionality, and rich interactive experiences."

WPF/E: "“WPF/E” is the Microsoft solution for delivering rich, cross-platform, interactive experiences including animation, graphics, audio, and video for the Web and beyond. Utilizing a subset of XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language)-based Windows Presentation Foundation technology, “WPF/E” will enable the creation of content and applications that run within multiple browsers and operating systems (Windows and Macintosh) using Web standards for programmability. Consistent with Web architecture, the XAML markup is programmable using JavaScript and works well with ASP.NET AJAX. Broadly available for customers in the first half of 2007, “WPF/E” experiences will require a lightweight browser plug-in made freely available by Microsoft."

Dekoh: "Dekoh Desktop is a cross-OS desktop platform that brings several key J2EE, database and web services modules together, in a compact footprint package ready for end consumer use. Dekoh as a platform enables building a new breed of applications that combine advantages of the web and the PC. Dekoh applications bring rich interface, interaction and functionality using personal media and local devices on the PC. These applications can work even when offline and provide a web 2.0 style sharing and community networking features. "

Here we have three products aiming to bring "web to desktop" or the other way around! Either way, the aim is to increase collaboration, user experience, easy of use which are all properties of Web 2.0. So Web 2.0 is moving to a better way unlike some authors who say "Web 2.0 is over and out!". Looking deeper into these products, its really worth comparing as these are definitely here to stay and change the way we interact with web.

On comparing these products you will see that both Apollo and WPF/E are from software giants, and Dekoh is a new product being born from Pramati. Looking how these software giants perform, we know Microsoft runs the largest share of PC, but at the same time Abode has 97% of penetration for its flash player which its cross-OS platform is based on. So looking at market, these two giants, already have their base built for launching their platform and there are enough developers and customers they can get hold on. In this part Dekoh fails!

We are over with one comparison and that's not enough, lets look and the developer community now. Microsoft has a vast developer community, with its Visual Studio .Net the community's size have definitely increased. Abode on the other hand have been attracting developers to its product by releasing SDKs for its different products like Acrobat to Photoshop. They also devloped ColdFusion which has also caught market share. Pramati Technologies is an end-to-end Enterprise Java platform vendor with a product suite that includes application servers, component development tools, and an extensible web based management framework. But I doesn't have it's own technology. So as such no developer community (other than their employees and closely related developers ).

But but but,.. their is a major point that changes view among these three technologies. We all know both Microsoft and Adobe are money makers! They have their SDKs free for (poor) developers and charge for the commercial versions of all their product. Here is where Dekoh shine! Dekoh is going to be open sourced and open to community( I am presently not sure under which license its going to be released ).

Now lets get technical.. All three have a different approach to the same aim. Microsoft is going to use their .Net XAML along with ASP.NET and Ajax (for sure) as their development path. In case of Apollo, Adobe has its extension of Flex and ActionScript as the main development path, but the developer can make use of HTML,flash and interact with javascript and Ajax. An important point here is both these products have their dedicated development path i.e, XAML of Flex, but Dekoh is going to make use of the existing technologies like DHTML,Ajax,Java,PHP and has support for Flash and Flex. So making use of the exisiting technology like Java and PHP which have a very large development community is one major plus for Dekoh.

Another point of difference is the runtime environments that runs these technology! Definitly Microsoft has released its WPF/E runtime environment for download, it is supported only on Windows and Mac (No Linux in sight and still they call cross-platform?) . Adobe makes use of its flash player technology and has a Apollo runtime (Alpha) ready for download. But Apollo too is only for Windows and Mac, but I am sure Linux Apollo runtime is on its way. Now looking at our new product, Dekoh makes use of Java 1.5 and higher as its runtime environment!!! We all know JRE is having a very strong hold in all sectors of the computer industry and this is going to be a major plus in case of Dekoh.

Coming back to developer community, Java has a very strong community compared to Adobe and even Microsoft (you may disagree). Developers tend to be lazy to study new language as it take time to be an expert. Taking this scenario, Dekoh has another plus to its pocket. But, just using the Java technology is not going to make is successful. Adobe as already been seen hunting java and other web developers to use Flex to overcome the complexity of using vast number of Ajax libraries.

So, with these new technology at you door steps, what are developers going to choose? Which one will rule the Web ? We are yet to find out ;) Have a good weekend!