The world of Internet Applications has got a new kid in the town named "RIA." That stands for Rich Internet Applications. RIAs are browser-based applications that attain the experience of desktop applications with little server-side interaction. With the limitations of browser-based applications a thing of past tense, you can now expect to see some refreshing RIAs not only on websites but also other digital devices such as phones, cameras, and televisions.
Traditional web applications vs. RIAs
Traditional web applications, built on a client/server architecture, had all the heavy lifting done on the server side, browser was rendered only the static data. The obvious limitations of this architecture were mainly concerned with performance, browser screen delay in particular, where there was a waiting for the browser to refresh and draw a page with passing information to and fro between the server and client-side browser.
With the introduction of RIAs, we get a client-side engine where execution is performed locally without a need for software installation or updates. Thus, pages don’t require to refresh as data transfer to and fro the server is not needed. RIA’s own framework within the browser environment has opened the door for client-side application features that were not previously available.
The market of RIAs is flourishing now for about half a decade as many big-time players have jumped into it, including but not limited to Microsoft SilverLight, Adobe Flex & AIR, AJAX, WPF, OpenLazlo Framework, and Google Web Toolkit.
How RIAs make sense to you?
RIAs are cool! Their advent is a major technological breakthrough. You, more importantly your customers, are missing out one of the newest and richest media experiences if you don't have it.
Not limited by the browser language, HTML applications of RIA are faster and richer. RIA incorporated websites are enabled to mix dynamically sourced data, audio, video, and other imageries. As rich a user interface that it has, think of it like Flash on steroids with exemplary dynamic data presentation based on user interactivity with any operating system and not needing a plug-in.
And guess what more! For this, you get most of the developer tools and platforms delivered open source.
Challenges!
Native RIA incapabilities lie in its offline presentation ability and with web analytics adequately addressing the unique features of RIAs.
With that said, if heavy-hitting companies like Microsoft, Google, and Adobe have recognized the power in RIA tools and have sensed their ability to deliver a greatly enhanced online experience that’s smartly delivered, there’s definitely something special about it!
Blog Category
Web Applications