The workflow aspect is one of the few areas where Adobe's RIA tools lag behind those of Microsoft, which has done a good job with its design tool Expression Blend, according to Wolf, whose company builds applications with both vendors' products. Microsoft's RIA tools are less mature than Adobe's, he said, but Microsoft was able to learn from Adobe when it created its products, he said.

"Like any first mover, Adobe has a few weaknesses that Microsoft, in their chasing-the-tail-lights approach, was able to jump on," he said.

Still, Adobe Flex, around for about five years, is more "mature and predictable" than Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation, Wolf said. Flex is "the defacto choice" for most of Cynergy's clients unless they are already committed Microsoft shops. But he expects Microsoft to catch up.

"Judging from the way our Microsoft practice has been growing, and the innovation Microsoft has been doing, we think they're going to end up being a pretty even duopoly over the next 18 months," he said.

The new version of Flex Builder will be more data-centric to make it more familiar to server-side developers, Adobe's Wadhwani said. "They'll be able to drag a data source out there -- from a BI tool or a database -- and Flex Builder will predict what they want it to look and feel like and then give them the ability to tweak that look and feel, rather than having to implement it from scratch," he said.

Flex could be used instead of Adobe's PDF format to create data-entry forms like those used by hospitals and governments, he said. With PDFs "you're just sticking a paper-based metaphor up on the screen." Flash and Flex can create more user-friendly forms that reduce input errors, and PDF can be used just for the final document output, he said.

The updates also include performance and productivity enhancements. Air 1.5, for example, can boost application performance with WebKit's new SquirrelFish Java interpreter, Wadhwani said. Free to download, Air 1.5 is available today for Windows and the Mac and is due for Linux by the end of the year.

Adobe said in September that Air was installed on about 25 million PCs, making it far less ubiquitous than its Flash Player. But Adobe expects to reach 100 million PCs by February, a year after its initial release, Wadhwani said.

Wolf said he's happy with Adobe's direction but hopes to hear more this week about its long term strategy.