I've written in the past about the great browser wars that have been rekindled recently. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Mozilla, and Opera have all recently announced new versions of their respective browsers. We here at my Indianapolis IT services company believe that this battle isn't over bragging rights to the fastest browser. We believe it's because the migration of software to a web-based subscription model is making the operating system less important. The company that produces the best browser will have access to the most eyeballs when they figure out how to take advantage of them.

The change that will make even the browser obsolete will be the coming onslaught of Rich Internet Applications. These are programs that run on your computer, looking like regular applications. However, they are really customized browser windows that are the interface to a web-based application. Microsoft has a development environment for these applications, as does Adobe and Google. The latest to enter this fray is Mozilla. They did it by way of a plug-in to their Firefox browser Prism logothat allows you to turn any website into a Rich Internet Application of sorts. Now the purists in the audience will say that Prism doesn't really create RIAs, but I say if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

My network technicians are playing around with various approaches to RIA development. We're watching the changes that are taking place in the development of web browsers. Google's Chrome has first place in my mind, but the Prism plug-in to Firefox has me trying some things that can only be done there.