Over the last decade and a half, the Internet has evolved from a mere repository of information to an interactive medium for people to share views and work. This transformation was largely possible due to web 2.0 components like Wikis and blogs. But clues to the next phase of Internet’s development seem to lie in its ability to provide rich and compelling visual experience.

Called Rich Internet Applications or RIA, the realm of media-rich Internet has been spurred by tools that enable persons even with basic scripting knowledge to create highly interactive and truly appealing applications. Such applications may be useful to post party videos on YouTube or send animations and banners about products to potential customers. 

Thanks to YouTube, developers are already aware of certain tools that can be used to provide content using Flash player. And Adobe’s move to make Flex -the developer framework to create Internet applications-open source has been believed by experts as the web and image Solutions Company’s bid to create a widely used RIA tool. With Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), that makes it possible for RIA applications created using Flex and Flash to be run locally on desktops (using Flash Players)— Adobe is said to have the set of tools and strategy that may allow it to hold an advantage in RIA development.

David Wadwani, Adobe’s Vice President for Platform Business Unit, who was in Bangalore to participate in a technology event on creating RIA using Adobe Flex and the virtual machine to play them (Flash), said the company’s position in RIA has been bolstered by their platform-oriented approach.

“If someone were to create mission-critical applications, they will still have to work with programmers with Object Oriented Programming background but concept and design makers are encouraged by the ease with which they can perform things like optimising applications or creating web widgets,” Mr Wadwani said.

“The possibility of drag and drop things from one Adobe tool to another and play it using a virtual machine (flash) has certainly made working with these tools a real fun,” he added.

Adobe hopes to create next generation tools for the Internet by building communities of developers around Flex and hopes the virtual machine -Flash-will also benefit from its decision to give it to Mozilla Foundation under a project named ‘Tamarind’. Flex Framework contains a compiler, language definition (ActionScript) and a Virtual Machine to run it all. All of this has been made free-the Compiler and framework is open source and is managed by Adobe; the company has initiated additional project with third party developers who have been contributing for its enhancement.

“We have been self-hosting the Virtual Machine and now we have contributed it to Mozilla,” Mr Wadwani said.

“And there is ActionScript which coincide with Javascript. So, at the open source stack, if a developer is writing (codes) for Flash or for browser, it can be run on the same VM. This is all developers need to write Flex applications.”

With the Flex framework developers from more than one vertical have come out with useful applications. Those working in finance, for instance, feel RIA created using Flex has been helpful in visualisation and liked using the applications for different kinds of data dash boarding.

“Flex has been a platform for great visuals,” Wadwani noted. “So, we are all the more surprised to see people using it for things like office automation. Productivity hasn’t been something it was intended for, but developers are discovering its worth as a productive tool now.”

According to one expert, Flex has been used by some major organisations and institutions such as Wall Street, Yahoo Maps, EBay, US federal agencies and Sap, underlining its growing popularity among developers.

Although there are other RIA tools like Microsoft’s SilverLight (the browser-based technology) and Expression Graphics, the move by Adobe to open source is expected to give tools like Flex and AIR a clear advantage.

Wadwani thinks Flex’s development also comes with the major change in attitude towards Internet.

“Back in 2003-04, when we first released Flex, people didn’t see any sense in flushing the Internet with visuals,” he mentioned. “But, the following couple of years saw the attitude changing significantly. That was when we made changes to pricing and subsequently made Flex open source.”