I don’t have much to say about the next product yet because Adobe Systems’ Apollo is so new that the company doesn’t even have a press kit for it yet, but this cross-OS runtime could be big news for your development projects. In a way, it seems to add a Web 2.0 interface to applications, using Flex, Flash and HTML, which can operate both offline and online. The only demo so far is an eBay example, but it was enough to show that Adobe has a full API to sync data when a user has been offline and then reconnects. Developers can also right click and "view source" to check the generated code. Adobe will ship a developer version in the "next few months," and you probably want to tell your development staff to pay attention.

Infrastructure and Info Structure

Serendipity Technologies’ WorkLight is a server-based product designed to consumerize the corporate computing experience. That is, it lets users experience enterprise data through a Web interface; they can subscribe to corporate data streams as a kind of secure RSS feed (because you just know that those fresh-out-of-school users won’t figure out SAP or traditional corporate data management tools). The user sees the same data he could reach by navigating into ERP and CRM apps, but the UI is much more accessible, with tags and bookmarks. It can live securely on your Google homepage, and people see only the data they’re authorized to see. The company says it scales to service thousands of employees.

New software from Triumfant provides enterprise-class automated resolution management to identify software problems and network anomolies before they affect the end user. Triumfant Resolution Manager collects 200,000 of system attributes from each networked computer per day and compares every computer to every other computer to learn what’s normal for your particular IT environment. Then Triumfant’s software can proactively find malware, discover if files were deleted that an application needs, or test for changed application settings (what did that user do to Outlook?!). Unlike some competitors, it doesn’t use backups or images and thus fill your disk with things you might need someday. I was impressed by its user interface, too.

Another important technology for you to watch is Symantec’s Symantec Identity Initiative, which will be released soon as the Norton Identity Client to "make sure consumers have confidence in a connected world," according to the company speaker. There are two key components to deal with: identity and reputation. The product promises to enable a user to securely share his personal info online and make intelligent decisions about when it’s safe to share that data. The Identity Initiative works with all the various industry credentials such as Microsoft’s CardSpace. What makes this particularly viable is that it’s from Symantec, which has a 24/7 response center to analyze sites, identify keylogging applications about which it can warn users away, and can interact with reports with the Better Business Bureau. As DEMO organizer Chris Shipley commented, they may have the gravitas to pull this off. I’m oversummarizing here, but I expect that our sister site, CSO Online, will report more than a six-minute brain dump about the product from RSA next week.