Avalon and XAML, Royale, Laszlo and MXML.
It's good to finally see Microsoft taking the wraps off of Longhorn, and in particular Avalon, the new presentation services for building and deploying Internet-connected Windows applications. Avalon uses XAML, a new format for describing the interface of a Windows application. This represents the “final convergence” of the browser and desktop worlds. Longhorn apps built with XAML can also use “Indigo”, the new native web services programming framework for Windows. It's suspected that this operating system will ship in 2006, and will require a completely new hardware footprint, which ensures that it won't be until 2008 when this platform is generally available for Internet-deployed/scale applications.
But this model of rich clients that can deliver vector-based, behaviorial interfaces, driven by XML user interface languages is already here in the form of Laszlo today, and Macromedia Royale (MXML) in the near future, and these can target clients that already have ubiquity, and like Avalon, are geared towards the web services centric model of computing. Likewise, the model of installed desktop applications that natively use web services for communications, but allow one-click installation from the Web, is also going to be here soon with Macromedia Central.
This will be a thread worth tracking….. [Jeremy Allaire's Radio]