Good timing too, with Microsoft’s Mix06 happening this week and the various impressions of Sparkle, err, Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer, coming from some Macromedia community luminaries who are in attendance.

Did Kevin Read the Article?
In October I was lucky enough to be sitting in the audience during Kevin Lynch’s keynote at Macromedia’s Max when he first talked about “Apollo”. Something tells me Kevin read the article too. Here, go check out the video from that keynote and you’ll see how familiar it sounds. Choose ‘Day One’ > ‘Platform Future’ (3rd thumbnail from the right), then jump ahead to around 1:08:00 (yup, the ability to direct link that would be easier for me too).

What Adobe Has Said About Apollo.
So like I said, I’ve been following Apollo and while there aren’t alot of concretes on what it will be, Adobe’s made a number of details available. I think Mike Chambers had the most recent public comment earlier this week:

“Discussed Apollo. This is a next generation platform we are working on for deploying Flash / HTML based applications to the desktop. Apollo will provide all of the desktop APIs and functionality you would expect from a desktop application, while allowing developers to leverage the technologies the are already familiar with (Flash / Flex / JavaScript / HTML / Ajax). And yes, it will be cross platform, developers have 100% control over application control (not running in some wrapper / shell), and you will be able to create applications using HTML / JavaScript / Ajax just like you will be able to with ActionScript / Flash / Flex.

Which Apollo Will It Be?
It’s pretty clear that alot has gone before Apollo (the most obvious of which was Central) and it’s entirely possible that Apollo may not even be the realization of it all. While I’ve finally come to understand that Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia is probably the only way to make a real go of it, I have to be honest and admit that when I would think about the realization of what’s described in the article-I-may-have-dreamed-up I never really imagined Acrobat in there. Judging by Kevin’s Max presentation I don’t get the impression he did either. I tend to be of a field of dreams, “build it and they will come” mindset but as I watch the players position themselves for the coming ‘occasionally connected’, ‘RIA on the desktop’ wave I’m beginning to realize that the kind of clout Adobe provides may be needed to make bringing all the pieces of this puzzle together possible.

Microsoft Read it Too.
Adobe isn’t exactly branching off on it’s own in this space and the competition is pretty obvious. Microsoft’s Vista and it’s Windows Framework (WinFX), is being positioned to turn the Windows OS into the web platform. The Microsoft plan to realize the scenario in that article I read is to leverage their platform with a nearly ubiquitous install base – the operating system. That’s what Sparkle is all about – designing those connected full on desktop applications.

This Last Bit Reads Kinda Like a Prediction.
With Vista looking like it’s maybe 6 or 8 months away I fully expect Adobe to crank things up on Apollo and won’t be surprised to see some Apollo related previews on Adobe labs between now and then. The timing on this is kind of significant in my opinion. The increased pace of web based application innovation that folks refer to as Web 2.0 has been surging for awhile now and while I don’t think it will fall off as dramatically as the dot com era, (it won’t get nearly as out of control either), I do think the shine will begin to wear off. If both Adobe and Microsoft have planned this correctly, just as the limitations of the RIA as we know it today becomes glaringly apparent (to non edge cases ’cause you edgies have thinking about this for years) there will be platforms available on which to build the applications that overcome those limitiations. And you know what, there’ll probably be room for both and any rumoured killings will be unlikely.

Check out Manuel Clement’s blog for some commentary. He links to some insightful thoughts from “Jared” at mindfury.com.

I’m going to grab a beer and take a look at today’s channel9 interview with some of the Sparkle gang.

Apparently he was a “technical lead” on Toolbook a number of years ago. What that bodes for Sparkle is unclear ;-)

Robert Scoble started the week off by saying that Sparkle is no Flash killer.

The Expression Suite press release is here.

Of course the Channel9 video. A 1+ hour, nearly 1 gig, .wmv of Scoble lobbing softballs at members of the Sparkle team. Freakin’ inspiring and worth the entire hour. Something cool about what they’re doing over on Channel9 – the content is genuine. No editing when software or people slip from the “script”.

Macromedia’s John Dowdell trudged through comments on Slashdot’s “Flash, meet Sparkle” article and linked to those he considered noteworthy. (Thanks JD!).

Jon Meyer, who at one time was a PM on Sparkle, has an interesting point of view. He seems to be suggesting it is the ubiquity of Ajax that is the main threat to Sparkle. He also mentions Flash a half dozen or so times and there’s some good discussion in the comments section.

Sparkle vs Flash on publish.com. Interestingly Matthew David feels that the term Flash-killer should be hyphenated. Seriously, it’s a decent read. (Tom Adams pointed this one out).

Eweek has another blurb by Matthew David on Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (WPF/E).

Dax Pandhi thinks about programming power and predicts that “WPF/E will most probably revamp the Internet itself“.

I think Scott Barnes feels the same way. Regardless, the enthusiasm makes it worth the read.

Peter Elst looks at Sparkle from a Flash user’s perspective.

Víctor Bayón thinks about how Window’s Vista is part of the Nike-ization of the software industry. The focus shift being from the functionality of the OS to the user experience. He points out that Sparkle is how MS see that shift being made:
http://www.virart.nott.ac.uk/idue/eng/weblog/2005/09/experience-iii.html

Tinic Uro, who is an engineer on the Flash Player, was at PDC and got a look at Sparkle:
http://www.kaourantin.net/2005/09/microsoft-sparkle.html

Okay this one isn’t on topic Sparkle wise but Molly Holzschlag takes Steve Ballmer to task for declaring that Microsoft will “win the web”:
http://webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_09.html#a000573