Adobe AIR: Why Adobe AIR will not be a success in the long run

Before you read any further, just know that I am a huge fan of AIR technology and applications created based on AIR. One of my favourite application is AIR iPhone and I also acknowledge that few of the most creative and innovative programmers are working on this technology and we will see eye catching and wonderful AIR applications in the time to come.

Now that you know I am not an anti-AIR.. Here is what I have to say….

Nintendo went back to basics with wii as far as the visual representation of the game goes and covered it up with state of art motion sensing technology and it worked for them. Now the question!

Is Adobe trying to do the same with software and internet technology what Nintendo did with the Games? I think the answer is “YES”. Let me explain…..

Google, IBM, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, etc… are investing heavily in Cloud Computing which is what they call Future of Internet Technology. Cloud Computing is considered the next generation model where MOST of your information will be stored on the internet (Internet Cloud).

Imagine a day when you don’t have to carry CD’s, DVD’s or any other storage devices because you can store all your data online which is accessible from any computer and anywhere in the world. Now that’s what I call technology with no boundaries. In such a scenario who would like to install applications on the computer or a laptop and carry it around. That’s not Web 2’ish or may be Web 3.0 is it?

Let’s look at it from another perspective. How many jobs can this technology generate? 1000, 10000, 100000 but is that enough? How many graphic designers exist who specialize in Photoshop? How many PHP, ASP, Ruby, Python, etc… programmers exist today? Millions! Almost every other site is designed and programmed using one of these technologies.

Keeping these things in mind I do not think Adobe can bring applications back to the Desktop when all the other techno giants are trying to move away from a computer based model.

Now what do you think is the future of AIR?