This morning was largely a reprise of the AIR story I’ve seen over the past year or so. No problem there - it’s the usual story from me with companies like Adobe that I cover closely. The audience at Engage today has got to be about twice, if not three times as large as the first one last year. I was wondering why they didn’t have the event on-site, and the answer is that the little at auditorium Adobe SF wouldn’t fit all these folks.
For me, and several of you, dear readers, the enterprisey demos are usually the most interesting. Matching clothing colors at Anthropologie is nifty, for sure, but the fresh meat are things like demos from Fedex and MPG.com.
The Fedex one was the sort of AIR RIA you’d expect: tracking packages, searching over packages, etc.
MPG.com is a sort of spanning layer above the global manufacturing sector - something I know nothing about, but that my dad, oddly enough, lives in as the materials guy for Polycom video. So while I’ve got an inkling of what goes on - lots of late night phone calls to Thai manufactures and tracking down lost shipments to Stockholm.
Here are some screenshots of MPG.com:
I asked the demo’er - didn’t catch his name in my notes - how long they thought they could maintain the RIA first mover advantage. That is, assuming they’re the only one in their sector using AIR, and assuming that gives them positive differentiation (read: make more money because customers like their interface), how long before the competition can catch up and knock out that advantage?
From what I heard, there wasn’t too much of an answer. Fair enough, you can’t really predict how long a differentiation by technology will last, kind of. But, it’s a good question for all of this stuff: how long can the technology itself be milked to make more money?
Disclaimer: Adobe is a client and paid my T&E to Engage 2008.
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