Macromedia Central and the Next-Generation Internet
In my previous Logged In article, I wrote about what I consider to be the 10 most important trends driving the next-generation Internet, or "Internet 2.0." What's most exciting about these trends is how they intersect and interact. This convergence fuels even further growth.
As part of my everyday work, I'm always looking for products and companies that acknowledge these trends and embrace their convergence in different ways. Of course, Macromedia is out ahead of these trends on a number of fronts.
In this article I focus on the newly announced Macromedia Central desktop environment. As a platform for next-generation Internet applications, Central offers a unique combination of facilities that align with every one of these 10 Internet 2.0 trends.
Rich Clients
Macromedia Central is, by definition, a rich client. It provides a shell and runtime environment for rich client applications deployed over the Internet. By leveraging Macromedia Flash Player, Central enables developers to deliver Rich Internet Applications that can do the following:
- Reside on desktops
- Collaborate with other applications
- Provide notification-based, presence-aware applications
Broadband
While the expressive power of Flash Player facilitates broadband experiences by its very nature, it's the combination of a fast, always-on pipe with Central that unlock broadband's appeal even further.
Using Central agents—Macromedia Flash programs that run as background processes on the desktop—developers can build applications that are "always on." Combine these agents with the always-on nature of broadband connections and you have powerful applications that can constantly provide data and content (including very large, high-quality media files) to end-user, broadband-connected PCs.
Wireless
As evidenced by its strong endorsement from Intel Corporation, Central has been designed at its core to support wireless-centric applications, where applications operate over high-speed Wi-Fi networks when they're online but can also operate offline just as well. The built-in network connection detection, synchronization, and notification capabilities of Central facilitate laptop and PDA-based applications that operate in a semiconnected or disconnected fashion.
A laptop connected to a broadband connection at home or at work can leverage always-on connections and Central agents to download high-quality content and media. Later, when unplugged, the Central application can function with or without wireless connectivity.
Devices
Because Central follows Flash Player wherever it goes, as Flash Player expands its footprint into non-PC devices, Central will follow suit. The most relevant and important of these devices are PDA platforms capable of running Flash Player 6 (and therefore Central) that come with built-in Wi-Fi support. Over the next two to three years, as Wi-Fi converges with smart phones and Flash Player, Central will become part of this richer fabric for communications and media delivery.
Real-Time Communications
Whether it's for consumer or corporate data, the ability to push data and surface notifications easily to end users on desktops in a cross-platform, ubiquitous environment is a huge leap forward for real-time applications. While Central leverages the powerful real-time communications facilities already available in Flash Player, it also augments and extends them.
Central offers developers an environment that inherently provides "presence awareness" to communications-centric applications. Using a persistent desktop presence, applications can maintain loose connections to real-time servers and provide a channel for real-time data and communications.
Web Services
At the heart of Central is its deep embrace of XML web services. In fact, the primary remote communications model of Central is based on web services standards such as SOAP and WSDL. Central also provides native support for these using ActionScript.
Instead of users calling these protocols from within a browser-contained application, Central provides a permission-based mechanism for desktop-resident applications to call arbitrary web service endpoints. This enables them to call out to network services located anywhere on the Internet and create one of the first general-purpose web services client environments.
Hosted Applications
As I discussed in my last article, hosted applications—or what people used to call application service providers (ASPs)—continue to grow and flourish. This provides an attractive operating model to ISVs and attractive licensing and operations to customers. As these applications take on broader importance (for example, in CRM, payroll, and HR functions) they'll benefit from the richness of the desktop and the deployment benefits of the web. Central provides the perfect compromise—a beefy persistent desktop client that reaches into the network for services and data but that also easily updates itself. Existing and emerging ASPs would do well to consider Central as the foundation of their hosted applications.
Big Data
The web has done a lousy job at keeping pace with advances in disk storage and available bandwidth. With big pipes into homes and big disks in modern PCs, Internet-centric software platforms need to provide better means for developers to take advantage of local and offline storage. Central does this through a powerful local file system cache that allows developers to cache arbitrary data (in the form of XML) and, more importantly, media and application assets. Who needs streaming media when a broadband, always-on PC can act as a TiVo and download valued media assets onto booming disk drives?
Software Manufacturing Economy
Macromedia Central is at the forefront of new models for creating and delivering software as a service, shifting us away from the past world of installed desktop software to the world of Internet-connected and delivered experiences. While Central itself does not specifically embrace open source software or global outsourcing (two key components in the emerging software manufacturing economy), it does create a platform for delivering hosted applications and for integrating and aggregating network services (web services) into greater value.
A Unique Opportunity
ISVs, developers, and content owners would do well to study Macromedia Central. It merges and enables a wide range of trends that are driving the next-generation Internet. It will be great to see what people build!
