In a significant step in the move towards cloud computing, software vendor Adobe this week announced the general release of AIR, a system that lets web applications run as though they were installed on the desktop.

Currently, most web applications such as Salesforce.com’s CRM tool run in a web browser. Although users are becoming increasingly familiar with idea of interactive applications executing in the browser, most are still more at home with applications that execute directly on the desktop.

AIR is a ‘runtime’ that allows applications that are hosted in a remote data centre and delivered via the Internet to act as a desktop application. It does that by downloading and running the application in a local memory cache.

Not only does this allow the application to look and feel like a standard desktop application, but it also allows the user to continue running the application offline. Application data is ‘synched’ back to online master version when the user reconnects to the web.

The runtime must be installed on the local device for AIR-based applications to work. But while there are different runtimes for each operating system (Windows and MacOS versions are available now, Linux will follow), the same web application can be executed on all of these versions regardless of the underlying operating system. This offers software developers a short-cut to avoid the costly and time-consuming task of repurposing applications for different operating systems.

Companies that have already used advance copies of AIR include eBay, which has used the system to make a desktop auction trading system. eBay Desktop allows users to buy and sell merchandise without entering the browser. Deutsche Bank and AOL are also early adopters.

The AIR runtime is not to be confused with Flex, another system from Adobe that uses Flash technology (which the company acquired when it bought Macromedia) to deliver rich internet applications (RIA) through the browser. A third version of Flex was also unveiled this week.

With its history in document formats and creative software, the unique selling point of Adobe’s software platforms is the ready availability of designers that already use the software, according to Andrew Shorten, a platform evangelist for the company. This makes their development tools particularly appropriate for making aesthetically pleasing, customer-facing applications, he says.

Further reading: The third way Combining on-demand software with on-premise code might prove to be the most powerful software paradigm yet. But the blend will not be without its difficulties

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