Adobe breathes fresh AIR into RIA

Grab some AIR AIR will not be suitable for every application. Personally, I'm quite content to use a browser for most things. But for enterprise dashboards and occasionally connected apps, as well as for many consumer-facing and marketing sites (watch out Webkinz!), breaking free of browser-badging and Web constraints makes a lot of sense.

On the enterprise front, companies such as Model Metrics (for Salesforce.com) and Business Objects are busy breathing AIR into their systems. There are also a number of projects under way to let AIR eventually tap native code via cross-compilation with ActionScript (for example, to migrate existing C++ or .Net applications).

Easy migration of legacy apps running on a freely available distribution of Linux (assuming Adobe follows through on the port) will be irresistible to many companies. I think we're seeing only the first hint of turbulence in a coming wave of disruption.

The ability to reduce hurdles to desktop application deployment makes Adobe AIR 1.0 a must-see. Although we're early in the game, Adobe's AIR tools are ready to help you start kicking up some dust today.