Those who read my blog know that I like a lot the idea of “smart client applications”. The “smart client motto” I preach is to “marry the easy distribution of Web applications with the rich client experience of Windows applications”. I wrote that very words in that article at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms953320.aspx back in 2004.

While Microsoft is asleep not promoting their good smart client story (WinForms, ClickOnce and now WPF), Macromedia/Adobe has been at full steam with their Flash/Shockwave products. Now they have Apollo, that promises to raise the bar: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/apollo/.

From the site above: “Apollo enables developers to create applications that combine the benefits of web applications – network and user connectivity, rich media content, ease of development, and broad reach – with the strengths of desktop applications – application interactions, local resource access, personal settings, powerful functionality, and rich interactive experiences.”

Well said. I hope this takes Microsoft out of its trance and they get their act together on promoting their Smart Client story. Note that I am not saying “developing”. I am saying promoting what they already have. One could argue that ClickOnce is too monolithical and the loosely coupled model used on the web, where pages are independent from one another, has some advantages. Still, Microsoft is the literally sleeping giant on this issue, either with ClickOnce or something else. It’s been already almost seven years from the first public appearance of the .NET Framework.

As to Apollo itself, the demos on their site are pretty lame; I would have done way better if I were Adobe. Installation looks a lot like Microsoft’s ClickOnce, from which they certainly picked up some ideas. I will check it under he hood later.