Mozilla Prism: More Evidence of Web/Desktop Convergence

Back in April I wrote how Adobe AIR (then called "Apollo") marks the beginning of the invasion of Web clients onto the desktop.

Later I wrote about the Java and .NET counterattacks (JavaFX and Silverlight) and then I wrote about Google's answer when Google Gears was announced.

Now Mozilla's Prism shows that even simple steps can help make this transition.

The main idea behind Prism is to "integrate web applications into the user desktop experience". Behind this fancy statement we have a simple solution -- the ability to add a a desktop/start/quicklaunch shortcut to any web application (or page for that matter)and have that show in a window that is configurable so that it doesn't waste pixels on irrelevant stuff for the applications (like navigation buttons, address bar etc.). This makes it better then just adding a shortcut yourself. Simple and elegant. Here's what my Google reader looks like with Prism:

If you want to start using it, you can just download the prototype for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows.

Posted by Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz at 08:15 AM  Permalink