The long awaited release of both Adobe AIR and Flex 3 has finally arrived. AIR's main purpose is to give developers the power to produce practically any type of application, concentrating on usability not just functionality.

This also puts back the creativeness back in to applications, limited only by your imagination. We can finally stop talking about it and get on with it.

The support has been amazing, most major brands have been involved in one way or another, from AOL to Salesforce and eBay to VW, Nike and Nasdaq.

Start-ups are also appearing everywhere, these are really pushing the boundaries of creativity, but I feel we are only on the first rung of the ladder as the combinations of interactivelty and functionality are endless now we have a whole movement towards open API's and 'mash-ups'.

Key features:

• Enhanced Desktop Fucntionality: Drag and drop to the operating system, copy and paste between applications, launching of AIR applications from the desktop or the browser, and run in the background with notifications.
• Data Access: Adobe AIR now provides both synchronous and asynchronous access to the local file system, as well as structured data within a local database. This database is implemented using the open source SQLite database.
• JS Library Support: Most major Ajax frameworks can be used to build AIR applications. Supported frameworks include jQuery, Ext JS, Dojo, and Spry. Adobe AIR integrates JavaScript and ActionScript to allow cross-scripting between the two languages, and integrated rendering of Flash and HTML content.
• Security: Applications built on Adobe AIR can only be installed through a trustworthy install process that verifies that the application is signed via industry standard certificates, providing users with information about the source and capabilities of the application.

Ad.WRIGHT are currently developing some applications promoted as 'Branded Applications'. Adobe AIR is exactly the platform needed to create strong relevant connections with customers. This has been tricky and expensive in the past, but the whole Flex framework give a speed of development not seen before. Down to days or weeks instead of several months sometimes.

I think Brands now have a chance of building on application development that suits specific requirements without them becoming throw away items just for that month. It has also become less expensive to test and play out different experiences when searching for the 'Holy Grail' of usability.

Of course AIR also fits those 'monthly' campaigns, new skins and designs are easily rendered to fit a new project or promotion. There seems to be something for everyone and every Brand. A tall order maybe, but maybe Adobe Flex and AIR has the shoes to fit.

We think so... ;-)