System iNetwork

August 2006

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August 16, 2006

Triumph of the Browser?

It has been suggested that it might be premature to proclaim the triumph of the browser, as I did in the preceding thread. It was pointed out that Flash and other forms of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) may take precedence over the browser.

I agree that RIA's like Flash are likely to gain momentum, but they are so interwoven with the browser that I have a hard time agreeing that they negate the triumph of the browser. Rather they augment it and further it.

If we set aside the green screen, then the UI choice before the RIA was largely between the browser or some form of client software which had to be distributed to the user. Applications which found it hard to accomplish their tasks within a browser were likely to choose a rich client as an alternative.

The Rich Internet Application has now blurred the distinction between the browser and the traditional client. An RIA runtime is easily downloaded from the internet through the browser. In other words, we get to the RIA through the browser, and we are returned to the browser when we leave the RIA.

A typical internet experience may soon flow in and out of RIAs within a browser stream. The browser is like a river that can take us to islands of Rich Internet Applications. We might browse the news and do some internet shopping, and then navigate to an RIA site to book travel arrangements.

The RIA and the browser go together. The browser brings us to the RIA and the RIA returns us to the browser. In any event, green screen and traditional client/server applications will lose ground as the browser and RIA prove their power and attractiveness.

The triumph goes to the browser and RIAs working together.

For more information about the RIA phenomenon see "Rich Internet Applications: Where Form Follows Function" by Nahid Jilovec in the August 2006 issue of iSeries News. You can also download white papers about RIAs and Flash from http://www.adobe.com/resources/business/rich_internet_apps/whitepapers.html

Posted by on August 16, 2006 at 10:05 PM | Comments (30)