Clash of the Titans Adobe Air Vs Microsoft Silverlight Date:   Thursday , June 03, 2010 Introduction Rich Internet Application (RIA) is a terminology that one comes across very frequently. It is a concept that came into lime light very recently, has taken the world into frenzy. Today internet is one platform that brings the world together and rich internet application makes Web and Desktop application possible. Top players like Microsoft and Adobe has come up with an array of RIA frameworks in the recent past, out of which recently launched was Adobe AIR & Microsoft Silverlight. Both Adobe and Microsoft has been ace in their domain and has shown excellent expertise in creating such frameworks. Both AIR and Silverlight has come out with specific technologies that have come a long way helping the developers. Adobe has been one of the most user friendly platforms for developers and has provided with famous and popular RIA frameworks like Adobe Flash, Flex & now AIR. Similarly Microsoft’s Silverlight has proved to be one of the most favored RIA frameworks enabling desktop application developers to move towards RIA using XAML. Both the applications have been developed keeping in mind the usability and feasibility of the developers and hence equally favored. Adobe and Microsoft has been holding a strong position in this segment and still maintain the same. Both Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight have received great response since their inception in the market. Microsoft has upgraded Silverlight and recently introduced Silverlight 3. Advantage AIR! Adobe has been one of the pioneers to revolutionize the RIA platform over the years. Adobe’s excellent technology has been one of the favorites for developers. With every new launch of RIA platforms like Flex, Flash and now AIR, Adobe has always worked towards enhancing the quality and the experience of working on the platform. Adobe AIR is one such platform that has enhanced itself in order to make it choicest of all. AIR is a cross-OS runtime enabling developers to use existing Web development skills to build Internet applications that can run on the desktop.With the launch of AIR 2 it now completely supports Windows 7 & Snow Leopard, thus evolving as one of the significant tool for companies to better serve their clients and also build relation with prospective clients. With Adobe AIR, applications scale up from being just a destination that customers can access through a web browser to a connection that provides seamless connectivity & interaction with clients. AIR enables consumers have a rich experience of the web, allowing them to access their favorite web application anytime and anywhere. Now consumers can avail for the application of his choice, any time – on the desktop, web browser, on any platform and on any device! In short Adobe AIR has now made your consumer’s favorite application omnipresent! What can be considered as one of the best feature of this application is that it gives total freedom to the developer from the browser. In the mean while it also ensures that the application works seamlessly and looks the same on all platforms and operating system. One of the characteristic features of AIR is its capability to retain typical desktop features like copy, paste, drag and drop. While working on the web developers lose touch with desktop features. Now with Adobe AIR, developers can interact with their desktop, thus maintaining a familiar environment for them. One of the greatest features of AIR is its free access to the operating system capabilities such as communicating with other networks, reading files etc. Earlier application designers had to adhere to strict security limitation of the browser. Web security was so rigid that interacting with files and folders in the local system was impossible. Thanks to Adobe AIR, such limitations are now done with. With Adobe AIR, project managers and developers get space to utilize their own creativity, while designing application for users. Now applications do not have to necessarily follow the age old formats of the web browser and application developers can create their own designs and formats. Moreover, with AIR one can send notifications to their users through just a simple desktop notification. Users now do not need to log on to their mail and check for notifications. Desktop notificationallows clients to be regularly updated without the hassle of checking his/her emails every now and then. As Adobe is one of the most successful players in the RIA space, hence developers accustomed with Adobe FLEX, Flash, AJAX can easily adapt themselves with AIR. Due to its smooth functionality, AIR has emerged as developer’s choice! Light up with Silverlight! The RIA space has witnessed an unforeseen gathering of some excellent players and Microsoft Silverlight is one of them. Microsoft has evolved as the Mecca for internet application and Silverlight is one of its best offering. With the demand of the developers increasing day by day, Silverlight has been so designed that it answers everything related to RIA. With a vision to make Silverlight for all browsers and all web users, its inter-operability with Safari & Firefox and working with MAC OSX platform stands out as the main attraction. What probably makes it more attractable is the fact that is it independent of Windows. It works across Windows successfully without any problem whatsoever. Moreover, Silverlight contains a compact CLR (Common Language Runtime) that allows developers build applications similar to desktop on the web in a gamut of programming languages. This in turn enables access of a set of full .NET platform that runs on desktop though browsers! With CLR, Silverlight gets more agile and light (size reduces). Silverlight has evolved as an excellent platform that imbibes desktop performance and flexibility. Its compatibility with mobile devices increases its horizon and acceptability. Silverlight completely supports Windows mobile and Symbian, which will surely enhance its demand amongst the developers. Thus spreading its wings across vast majority of desktop application and mobiles, Silverlight has successfully achieved something that other players are coveting to. The best part of Silverlight is its web service called Silverlight Streaming, which allows developers and users to host their Silverlight content with Microsoft! With the help of its extensive network of datacenters and their content delivery network, Silverlight creates immense opportunity for developers across the world. The good news is that the service is completely free and allows users to store up to 4GB of content. One can create a complete video content site using Silverlight at no cost at all. What comes as the icing to the cake is Silverlight’s advantage with multimedia. It has evolved as the best medium for online video. Traditionally being associated with Flash, online media gets a new lease of life with Silverlight. With Silverlight, web-based video distribution becomes as good as desktop based downloads as well as DVD and other offline content. Similar to other Silverlight applications, video can too be streamed with Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox or Mac OSX. Undoubtedly, Silverlight encompasses some brilliantly conceived features that give an exceptionally different feel and experience to it. A trusted name, Microsoft has crafted Silverlight as the canvas for developers to give shape to their figments of imagination! The Choice is yours The battle grows fierce with each player gears up to rule the domain. What would be interesting is to wait and see who adapts faster with changing time. The whole game stands on the fine balance between feasibility & compatibility. With clients getting ever demanding, developers have to come out with unique and attractive app. The world of internet application is in a constant flux and to keep up with the motion is the biggest challenge for the developers. In the long run, both have to keep enhancing itself in order to stay ahead in the rat race. Both Adobe & Microsoft has established themselves as trusted names in this arena and have constantly evolved with time. Thus the competition is great between them and as it grows, the developer’s job gets a little easy.