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Taking the web out of the browser

Apollo is a new cross-platform desktop runtime being developed by Adobe that allows web developers to use web technologies to build and deploy Rich Internet Applications and web applications to the desktop. Why would anyone want to do this? Well, we work with a lot of sales reps who are out in the field and don’t have a reliable internet connection. Building an application that can easily sync with internet content has been tricky to do in the past, but Apollo is promising an API for synchronizing data whenever you are actually online. This could be the actual build once, run anywhere desktop solution that Java never really delivered on.

I’ve also had a theory for a while that the only way consumers will pay for software on the web is to get it out of the browser. Perceived consumer value. I hate to cut and run with that comment, but I’ll save that rant for a future blog posting.

Head on over to Adobe’s site to see the senior product manager for Apollo show off an eBay-branded Apollo application. The great thing about Apollo is that it allows developers to leverage the web skills they already have. It really does look promising, and I’m excited to see what the Flex/Flash/AJAX community comes up with by using Apollo.