Jesse James Garrett Sees Adobe AIR as Another Boost For Web Apps
One of Web 2.0's founding fathers says the divide between browser-based and desktop applications is quickly disappearing. — Adaptive Path president Jesse James Garrett, the man who coined the term "Ajax," …
Context & Ripple Effects
Adobe's desktop runtime has been framed all spring as a fight over who hosts web applications: GigaOM cast it in March 2007 as Apollo versus Firefox, with the browser as the incumbent under threat. In May, Sun entered the frame when internetnews asked whether JavaFX spells the end of AJAX, positioning new runtimes as replacements for the technique Garrett himself named.
Against that backdrop, Garrett's read is contrarian in a specific way: he treats Adobe AIR not as a browser killer but as another distribution channel for web-app technology, arguing the divide between browser-based and desktop software is collapsing from both directions.
First-order effects
- Developers building Ajax-style applications gain a path onto the desktop through AIR without abandoning their existing web codebase, since the same skill set now targets two surfaces instead of one.
- The framing battle among runtime vendors shifts: where March coverage cast Apollo as an assault on Firefox, Garrett's argument gives Adobe a pro-web narrative to recruit the developer community with.
Second-order effects
- Sun's JavaFX pitch — sold partly as an AJAX successor — now competes against a story where AJAX-style development extends rather than dies, forcing each runtime vendor to argue why its container beats simply staying in the browser.
- Mozilla faces pressure to articulate what the browser alone offers that desktop runtimes do not, turning features like offline use and local file access into differentiators rather than runtime exclusives.
Third-order effects
- If web technologies become the default way to build desktop software, the gatekeeping role of the browser erodes and competition moves up the stack to whoever controls the packaging runtime — a contest Adobe opened with AIR, Sun joined with JavaFX, and Mozilla must answer within Firefox itself.
The trend: Web-application technology is escaping the browser onto the desktop through competing vendor runtimes, with each player claiming to extend rather than replace the open web stack.