It's long been known that Apple (that is Steve Jobs) doesn't want to work with Adobe Flash to develop Apple's RIAs, and that Apple was searching for alternatives in the Ajax/JavaScript camps. SproutCore is a JavaScript framework, one of scores, in part distinguished by being modeled after Apple's Cocoa development environment. SproutCore code executes completely within a browser (most browsers anyway), although Apple has already needed to hitch the SquirrelFish JavaScript Interpreter to its Safari browser to boost performance.

As I explored in this case study about a Defence Intelligence Agency mashup, the technology at its most fundamental addresses one of the oldest IT problems around: Delivering appropriate data in a usable fashion to those who make decisions. What's different now, obviously, is the Internet and the technologies behind Web applications and Web 2.0.

Adobe is not the only company working toward that time when we can build rich, interactive, and data-filled applications for the Web or the desktop with equal aplomb. However, making a big step of its own yesterday (January 25, 2008), Adobe released three products: Adobe Flex 3 Framework, Adobe Flex Builder 3 and Adobe AIR 1.0. A fourth related product, Adobe BlazeDS, was also recently announced. Collectively these products move Adobe and its band of developers further in the direction of the seamless Web/desktop application development system.

But what about new companies; can they really start from scratch? Specifically I'm thinking about a company like Nexaweb Technologies, whose flagship product, Nexaweb Enterprise Web 2.0 Suite, I recently reviewed for Intelligent Enterprise. Here's a company formed in 2000 that has bitten off a very large chunk of enterprise software development turf. They aim to make Web 2.0 and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) fit for the enterprise.

Here's what Bill Hilf, Microsoft's General Manager of Windows Server Marketing and Platform Strategy has to say in a recent Information Week interview: "When people buy commercial software, really what they are buying is a guarantee. You're buying a guarantee that what you have will perform, and has been tested and there's someone you can call up, and if things go really bad someone's liable if something doesn't work. You're buying this ecosystem of accountability."

The horse, of course, is the pull of rich presentation media and highly interactive user interfaces. The horse is lively, interesting to watch and, in practice, leads the way. The cart is the conveyance vehicle, all the backend machinery that enables a Rich Internet Application. The cart is homely and utilitarian, but made of necessary things such as data management, security systems, and communications. The current problem is that enterprise IT, quite naturally, prefers to put the cart before the horse.

It's not that mashups (however defined) aren't being taken seriously in the enterprise – for the most part they're not. It's that IBM, the primus inter pares of enterprise vendors, has chosen mashups as a key product for development.

This is the situation with Rich Internet Applications and the new software development ideas that go with it; and beyond that are the many facets of the so-called Web 2.0. I hear theme and variation on the IF and WHEN questions from IT people all the time. Even those shops that are already doing RIA development continue to re-visit the questions.

Now we get to Rich Internet Applications, and the connection to artwork goes up a notch. Almost by definition, RIAs are supposed to be enhanced by graphics design and multimedia. In some cases the multimedia, for example a demonstration video, may be the purpose and majority content of the application. In any case, the roles of design and art work (in the broadest sense) are integral to the production of Rich Internet Applications.

That's if the IT shop knows something about Adobe software development products. In the IT industry media, Adobe Apollo achieved the appellation "much-anticipated" without ringing many doorbells at the enterprise. That needs to change, if only because shops moving into the Brave New World of RIA and Web 2.0 need to know who's who, and Adobe is most definitely one who is.

Because rich applications feature user interface and media prowess, they (apparently) must have a "graphics engine" of some sort running on each user's computer. Intuitively I think this engine is what counts most in the competition to develop broadly useful RIA. Yes, the underlying language(s) are important. So are development environments and designers. So are standards and security. But the performance, efficiency, and wide distribution across platforms of the graphics engine — because it directly affects both users and developers — will be the edge which is likely to determine winners from also-rans in the RIA marathon.

Let me translate the blog-speak: On April 15, Microsoft announced the release of Silverlight, which formerly was called Windows Presentation Foundation/E (WPF/E). Based on technology developed for Windows Vista (the graphics portion formerly called Avalon), Silverlight is a streaming media delivery module, a piece of code that plugs into a browser, that Microsoft hopes will open the floodgates for media rich applications. Also, it's an Adobe (Macromedia) Flash killer.