Adobe’s AIR may leave customers deflated

The beta of Adobe’s new Adobe Integrated Runtime desktop platform tries to do too much for one product

Adobe’s Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) was launched earlier this month. Kevin Lynch, chief software architect, called it “the best of the web and the best of the desktop come together”. Unfortunately his statement does not stand up to scrutiny.

AIR is not useless. Flash is a great multimedia runtime, designers love it, and AIR lets you take Flash applications and install them into the desktop. It does not stop there. AIR also lets you take an HTML application and install it into the desktop, because it includes an open-source HTML engine called WebKit. This is where the problems start, however. It is all a touch schizophrenic, and there are two separate AIR development kits, for HTML and for Flash. AIR actually includes two JavaScript engines, one in Flash and another in WebKit. Adobe has lost its focus and is trying to do too much in one product.

HTML applications are better kept within the browser. The AIR implementation is hobbled, particularly in its lack of support for plug-ins, with only Adobe’s own Flash and PDF allowed, and the benefits are small. It is true that you get full access to the file system, but even browsers can load and save documents.

Adobe should have reserved AIR for Flash applications, but even here “the best of the desktop” is a stretch. AIR applications have no access to native libraries, which ensures cross-platform compatibility, but also means weak printing, and little integration with other applications beyond clipboard support. Considered purely as a desktop platform, AIR is poor compared to either Java or .Net, which have richer runtime libraries and greater extensibility.

Another issue is database access. AIR has a local database engine, but if you want to interact with a database server, the only option is web services, whereas other platforms have fast native drivers.

The most compelling benefit of AIR applications over browser-based equivalents is offline capability, but here Google has changed the rules with its Gears engine that lets browser applications also work offline.

If merely running outside the browser is enough, then AIR fits the bill. It will have a niche, particularly for consumer applications, but judging by the current beta it is hard to find many good reasons for enterprises to use it in place of Java or .Net on the desktop, or web applications running in their more familiar home, the browser.