WEB APPS: Houston, We Have a Vision

Iskandar Blogger 8:43 PM
Apollo.  No, we're not talking about the god of Greek mythology, nor the U.S. manned missions to the moon.  No, not even the fighter pilot from Battlestar Galactica (both original series and SciFi channel version).  No, Apollo is the code name for Adobe's venture into taking Flash and Adobe Reader out of the browser and onto the desktop [see video here].  They're not alone.

I've been anxious to see things like goowy or iscrybe come to fruition as local clients that work seemlessly online and off.  I may be connected to the net 99% of the time, but as a laptop user that 1% is still important to me.  I can't commit to google calendar if I can't get to it 100% of the time.  Now it sounds like ajax developers, java developers, and adobe developers are seeing the opportunity to be everything to everyone, regardless of their online status.  Since these development platforms are all mutli-OS compatible, you can develop one app and get it out to everyone at once.  And you can make it work locally and on the net, without a browser.

Could these developments be what pushes the OS back into being ONLY an operating system and not a bloated, self-contained software suite?  Could Microsoft's LIVE strategy actually work?  Stay tuned...

- Hutch