RIAs or RIEs – Call Them What You Will, They're Here @ WEBLOGIC JOURNAL

RIAs or RIEs – Call Them What You Will, They're Here

What's More They're Boosting the Bottom Line for Fortune 500 Companies

Mar. 11, 2008 12:15 PM

“Enough with the new words already.” That was how Sean Voisen recently ended a discussion about the burgeoning technology lexicon, which he thinks can only be explained as “a ploy to keep Merriam-Webster in business.”

Voisen, who designs and builds Rich Internet Applications, web applications, data visualizations and what he calls “other fun pieces of Internet-enabled software” for a living, is not a fan of ‘RIA’ as a term.

“Marketing gurus create new terminology like ‘RIA’ and ‘Web 2.0’ in order to force people to engage in new conversations without them dragging along their baggage of ingrained prejudices about what something is or is not,” Voisen contends. “They also do it – I am convinced – to make themselves seem smart,” he adds. Voisen’s view is echoed by Ethan Eismann, the Senior Experience Design Lead of Adobe Thermo with Adobe’s XD team. He disagrees with ‘RIA’ as a term for two reasons: “First, because like all things techy, it’s already obsolete and second because it’s limiting.”

But Eismann admits that while he hates ‘RIA’ he also loves it:

“I love it because it’s now such a part of the common vernacular of web culture that when it’s used everyone immediately understands that you are talking about ‘something better than primitive HTML websites.’”

Its limiting factor as a term, according to Eismann, has to do with the two words “Internet” and “application.” Personally he prefers to use the acronym ‘RIE’ – for ‘Rich Interactive Experience.’

Front-end engineering experts like Voisen and Eismann remind us that the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies and the iPhone experience have shown that great user interface design makes a big difference, that the era of what Eismann calls primitive HTML websites is truly over, and that on the Web the new priority is innovation and optimizing the User eXperience (UX).

The tools and platforms that encourage and support superior UX are becoming the pre-eminent tools for business survival and success, and their numbers are growing all the time, as evidenced for example by the mushrooming success of the AJAXWorld Conference & Expo series, which this month takes place in New York City. The 5^th International AJAXWorld has attracted delegates from 31 different countries, who will enjoy 90+ technical sessions, demos, and discussion panels as well as two keynote addresses by major thought leaders of the New Web, the user-focused Web.

AJAXWorld delegates once again will be attending from all over the world

User-centered design for the Web is just one of the tens of dozens of topics explored at this particular AJAXWorld – which in spite of its name is now as much about Rich Internet Applications and Web Development Frameworks as about merely AJAX per se. No other RIA-focused conference slices and dices the Web development and application space as boldly or as comprehensively: for 3 action-packed days the focus at The Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan will be on 16 core topics: RIAs, Enterprise Mashups, Silverlight, AIR/Flash/Flex, JavaFX, ASP.NET AJAX, Toolkits & Frameworks, Security, Reverse AJAX/AJAX Push, Social Applications, Web 2.0, Enterprise AJAX, SOA, theYahoo! Interface Library, and the iPhone.

After the resounding success of the first-ever iPhone technical sessions at AJAXWorld on the West coast in September ’07, a dedicated 2-day iPhone Developer Summit is in fact being held simultaneously with AJAXWorld in New York City – chaired by the editor-in-chief of iPhone Developer's Journal, Kevin Hoffman. Another indicator of the business and market-share power of superior user experience.

Anthony Franco, president of the aptly named EffectiveUI, sums up the inflexion point very succinctly. “Last year, the overall demand for RIAs outpaced the qualified supply chain,” he wrote in a recent article for AJAXWorld Magazine. “This trend will continue in 2008. While last year brought unprecedented growth in RIA adoption – especially by Fortune 500 companies – RIA adoption in 2008 brings a new onslaught of risks, rewards, challenges, and opportunities for companies of all sizes.”

In the end – quite aside from whether you call them RIAs or RIEs – what matters is not words or terminology but business and the realities of enterprise computing. “RIAs are impacting the way that companies like eBay, Ford, Random House, Viacom, GE, Dow Jones, and NBC think about the Internet and desktop software, and are demonstrating how innovative thinking can completely change the way they do business,” says Franco, who joined the AJAXWorld speaker faculty this year for the first time. As president of EffectiveUI, he enjoys unique opportunities to see close-up how Fortune 500 companies are beginning to harness RIAs and leverage them to improve the user experience and boost the bottom line.

Published Mar. 11, 2008 — Reads 8,661
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media. All Rights Reserved.

▪ Where Are RIA Technologies Headed in 2008?

▪ i-Technology 2008 Predictions: Where's RIAs, AJAX, SOA and Virtualization Headed in 2008?

▪ AJAXWorld Keynote Speaker on the Risks and Rewards of RIAs

▪ A – Z for the RIA Era

▪ The Business Value of RIAs: An Informal, Virtual Round Table

▪ Kevin Lynch's Passion for RIAs Secures Promotion to CTO of Adobe

▪ How Appcelerator is Building the Largest Open-Source Community Dedicated to RIAs

▪ An A to Z of Speakers at AJAXWorld 2008 East in New York City

▪ Why Is an Enterprise RIA Platform Different?

About Jeremy Geelan
Jeremy Geelan is Sr. Vice-President of SYS-CON Media & Events. He is Conference Chair of the AJAXWorld Conference & Expo series, of the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo and founder of Web 2.0 Journal, AJAXWorld Magazine and other major SYS-CON titles. From 2000-6, as first editorial director and then group publisher of SYS-CON Media, he was responsible for the development of all new titles and i-Technology portals for the firm, and regularly represents SYS-CON at conferences and trade shows, speaking to technology audiences both in North America and overseas. He is executive producer and presenter of "Power Panels with Jeremy Geelan" on SYS-CON.TV.

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