Adobe Apollo vs Microsoft WPF

As mentioned in last post, Report from Microsoft Live 2007, Microsoft will be releasing full versions of WPF and WPF/E during the year.

But don’t think that the competition is sleeping. Have a look at the freshly released Apollo by Adobe, a cross-platform runtime for bringing RIAs to the desktop. It is built on top of Flash Player 9, using ActionScript 3 and the Tamarin virtual machine. Apollo is right up there in the ring, jabbing with Microsoft even before the fight has started.

Just like WPF with WPF/E, Apollo blends the desktop and the web. The current alpha release only supports developing in Flex, but the next beta looks like it will support HTML based applications. I feel that even though Microsoft has done much to make WPF/E work on other platforms, WPF still is a Windows technology for creating Windows applications. This will likely give Apollo an advantage in certain positions.

In a way, Apollo vs Microsoft feels like Rocky all over again: The fast and technically superior Apollo Creed fights the unstoppable Rocky Balboa who just won’t go down, and we all know who won that one.

Want to know more about Apollo? Read the book and try it.

Update: It’s a fast world we’re living in. From nowhere Slingshot comes along and provides more competition for Apollo.