There's been quite a bit of buzz in the RIA world following Microsoft's announcement that Silverlight 1.1 has been supplanted by version 2.0. The biggest change, based on early reports, is a clearer articulation of the company's positioning strategy for Silverlight. Based on a post by Tim Sneath, it appears clear that Silverlight is now the RIA/web app component for Windows Presenttation Foundation (WPF) and has been reworked to align better with that framework.

So what's coming in Silverlight 2.0? I think the thing that excites me the most about this release is the scale and breadth of UI innovation going into Silverlight. In WPF, we have a really powerful platform for building Windows desktop applications, and it will remain the "Ferrari" that contains the highest level of graphical functionality. Silverlight takes that same UI framework and transports it to the web, enabling RIA developers to create web-based applications using all the same skills as they need to build sophisticated Windows client applications. This unification of the framework across web and desktop is not easy to accomplish; many of the breaking changes that you'll see between Silverlight 1.1 Alpha and the Silverlight 2.0 Beta have been introduced to bring about far greater consistency between Silverlight and WPF. The goal is to make it really easy to take a Silverlight application and bring it to the desktop: you shouldn't have to completely rewrite the code to reach across the barrier to an offline solution.

"...they’ve overhauled some of the technical aspects in Silverlight 2.0. The rich control set is aimed at giving you the ability to create actual applications and they are going to have a high level of networking support. Scott’s blog says you’ll be able to expect REST, POX, RSS and Web Services from Silverlight. This brings it up to par in a lot of ways with Flash on the networking side"

Today, we announced the availability of of Curl 6.0, the latest release of our development and deployment platform for Richer Internet Applications. Here's the announcement:

Curl Announces Version 6.0 of Rich Internet Application Development Platform

Newest version helps enterprise RIA developers create modern user interfaces and build mashups

Cambridge, MA - November 19, 2007 - Curl, Inc. today announced Version 6.0 of its Curl Rich Internet Application (RIA) platform, which makes it easier for developers to build enterprise-class RIAs. The new release includes significantly expanded user interface styling capabilities, enabling developers to provide a fresh, modernized look and feel, along with an engaging end-user experience for any Curl-based application. Additionally, Version 6.0 enables new kinds of enterprise mashups that integrate JavaScript and Curl APIs.

“Our focus on the enterprise has enabled us to see the specific pain points that organizations face when developing their most mission-critical, sophisticated, Web-based applications,” said Bert Halstead, vice president and chief architect, Curl. “With powerful new look and feel options and the ability to build mashups incorporating JavaScript components, the most powerful platform in the RIA industry continues to bring enterprises the tools they need to address their challenges head-on.”

Key features of Version 6.0 of the Curl platform include:

• Skinning Package – This provides new appearance options for controls, including drop shadows, custom images, gradients, and rounded corners. In addition, the new version includes a predefined style sheet and skin that can be used to instantly give Curl applications a modernized look.
• Advanced Rendering APIs – Curl 6.0 provides convenient access to advanced features such as antialiasing and alpha blending.
• AJAX Interoperability Features – Curl applications can now make calls to JavaScript APIs in the surrounding Web page, and can also be controlled from JavaScript in the surrounding page. Support for parsing and creating data streams in JSON format is included as well. With these features, Curl can be used to build mashups that include data accessed using existing JavaScript APIs.
• Server Interoperability Features – With this, Curl provides a server-side Java package that can be used to access data on the server using the Curl serialization format.

• Supports a wide range of Windows platforms, as far back as Windows 98, as well as Linux and Mac OS X.
• Exhibits the highest run-time performance and the most compact application sizes of any RIA platform.
• Enables effective software development by means of the Curl content language that supports text markup, graphics, scripting, and high-performance object-oriented computing, all in one integrated framework.
• Supports thousands of APIs such as charts, controls, record sets, animated 2D and 3D graphics, internationalization, and much more.
• Provides a comprehensive Integrated Development Environment (IDE), which includes a drag-and-drop visual layout editor, debugger, performance profiler, interactive documentation, deployment tool, and much more.

An initiative in the Mozilla Labs called Prism seeks to put web applications on the desktop, running in their own application windows and behaving more like a rich client application than when run in the browser chrome. It's an interesting idea from a user experience perspective and we'll be keeping a close eye on this project. Prism was initially available for Windows only but has now been released for the Mac OS X and Linux platforms as well. The Mozilla Labs web site describes Prism like this:

Mozilla Labs is launching a series of experiments to bridge the divide in the user experience between web applications and desktop apps and to explore new usability models as the line between traditional desktop and new web applications continues to blur. \\ Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we're not building a proprietary platform to replace the web. We think the web is a powerful and open platform for this sort of innovation, so our goal is to identify and facilitate the development of enhancements that bring the advantages of desktop apps to the web platform.

Prism isn't a new platform, it's simply the web platform integrated into the desktop experience. Web developers don't have to target it separately, because any application that can run in a modern standards-compliant web browser can run in Prism. Prism is built on Firefox, so it supports rich internet technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and <canvas> and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. And while Prism focuses on how web apps can integrate into the desktop experience, we're also working to increase the capabilities of those apps by adding functionality to the Web itself, such as providing support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware.

There's some interesting conversation around the announcement already. In an article in the New York Times, Adobe's Mike Chambers, the project manager for AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is quoted (from his personal blog) as taking some umbrage at the way Mozilla is positioning their effort relative to Adobe's (as well as Microsoft's Silverlight).

"The thing I found odd was Mozilla appears to be building something very similar to Adobe AIR (which is fine and cool), but somehow it is inherently good when Mozilla does it, and inherently evil when Adobe does it," Chambers responded. "AIR is built on top of Web standards and can run existing Web applications and content. It runs on Windows and Mac (and soon Linux), and it also provides additional desktop functionality.

"Is the main difference ... that AIR is being primarily developed by a company, and that Prism is being developed by Mozilla?"