Adobe Apollo

A colleague of mine pointed out Adobe Apollo to me.
This is a very interesting technology and just confirms the trends that seem to be crystallizing in the application development space.
- pure web applications are reaching their limits in terms of usability
-> Web 2.0 wants to address that with AJAX, but the underlying protocols/languages (HTML) are just too old
- the large deployment of existing browsers, different browser technologies and the security implications that lead to tighter browser security limit what can be delivered to the user even using Web 2.0
- the user wants a seamless experience with applications that are powerful and allow desktop access and disconnected operation

-> It seems that the major players in this field are realizing this and the solution offered is a completely new "browser" - a new runtime to host new and improved content and make it feel more like a desktop application (speed, access to local file system and apps, disconnected operation)
- Microsoft introduced WPF/E as a new runtime to run XAML applications
- Adobe is working on Apollo (synergy between Flash, PDF, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax according to their web site)

On a related note, Microsoft's Click-Once technologies try to address the deployment and maintenance problems that plague desktop applications.

So basically the convergence of these technologies is targeted to the enhanced user experience. The user wants the best of both worlds:
- web app's ease of deployment, always up-to-date, highly portable
- desktop app's speed, UI features, disconnected mode, access to local system resources

We'll have to see how this pans out, but this is definitely something that seems to be here to stay and I think we haven't seen the last of this.
Especially if Adobe manages to create their Apollo runtime for the Windows Mobile and Linux platforms (and maybe Symbian/PalmOS devices) this might be a technology that can catch on.

But in general, for me as a developers this means to be aware of this trend and keep up with the technologies involved