Nicholas Thomas, co-founder and COO of Finicity, believes that Flex + AIR via any desktop + Mobile (in one or more technical forms) can take us a step towards the vision that Mark Weiser presented in his original works on ubiquitous computing. As the primary client for a consumer web-based SaaS product, Flex has both advantages and disadvantages, according to Thomas.

Thomas will be sharing his experience in migrating from AJAX to Flex at the 6th International AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo in San Jose, CA - Octovber 20-22, 2008.

Thomas served as Finicity's Chief Technology Officer for over 6 years. Prior to co-founding Finicity, he managed Bluetooth research and development programs at 3Com's Wireless Group and served on the Management Board of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group representing 3Com and Palm. He received a BS in Electrical Engineering, an MBA from Brigham Young University, and holds six US and International patents in the wireless communications and solution delivery domains.

AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo 2008 West is being keynoted by two industry executives with overall responsibility for two of the most massive richer-web initiatives, Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch and Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of the .NET Developer Platform, Scott Guthrie.

Breakout Sessions in San Jose, CA, include all of the following Key Topics:

AIR & FLEX

FLEX + AIR + MOBILE
Nicholas Thomas – Co-Founder & COO, Finicity
In this session Nicholas Thomas will share his experience in migrating from AJAX to Flex as the primary client for a consumer web-based SaaS product.

Bringing Voice and Messaging to Flash and AIR
Charles Freedman - Director, Developer Platform, Ribbit
Freedman will demo how, with the growing demand of RIA and voice-over-the-web solutions, developers finally have a full suite of communication APIs to add to Flash.

AJAR

How Linked Data and AJAR Changes Everything
Kingsley Idehen - Founder & CEO of OpenLink Software
This session will cover access and exploitation of web-accessible Linked Data using AJAX- and AJAR-based technologies (Asynchronous JavaScript and RDF).

AJAX

AJAX for Oracle: Building RIAs Without Browser Plug-ins
John Krahulec - Co-Founder & COO, Bizwhazee
How to take a bunch of AJAX features and bake them into APIs stored in a database that can be called using simple declarative markup language.

AJAX in Enterprise Portals
Wesley Hales - Lead Portal UI Engineer, JBoss/Red Hat
How enterprise portals integrators can use AJAX at the portal level and for the development of more user-friendly JSR-168 portlets.

AJAX Integration Guide for Spring Enterprise Applications
Jeremy Grelle - Tech Lead, Spring Faces
A deep dive into evaluating the leading AJAX technologies, and how to integrate them with Spring to take full advantage of an existing Spring infrastructure.

AJAX with jQuery
Yehuda Katz - System Operations Manager, EngineYard
How does the jQuery library work? Why are so many users are able to build fully AJAX-enabled websites in their first day using jQuery?

Server-Side, PHP -Generated AJAX
Michael Ho - Co-Founder, Quasidea Development
This session will discuss and demo many of the new techniques which allow for the development of rich, AJAX user experiences without needing to code any JavaScript whatsoever.

BluePrints for AJAX Applications
Greg Murray - AJAX Architect, Aptana
This session defines the Blueprint for AJAX centric application design using JavaScript based widgets/gadgets on the client that interact with RESTful JSON-based services.

ASP.NET

Building Great AJAX Applications from Scratch Using ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008
Brad Abrams - Group PM for the UI Framework, Microsoft
A no-slides, code-only presentation that starts with a blank directory and builds a data-driven, AJAX enabled, ASP.NET web application from scratch.

Business Case for RIAs

Making the Business Case for RIAs in the SME Market
Howard Kiewe - Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech
This session will teach you how to make a persuasive business case with rational arguments like ROI analysis and emotional ones like leveraging social proof.

RIAs: "Flying Pixels" and Enterprise Applications?
Jeremy Chone - CTO, Nexaweb
In this session Nexaweb's CTO Jeremy Chone seven practical tips for bringing RIA to the enterprise.

Cloud Computing

Cloudy AJAX: Putting RIAs on EC2
Chris Keene - Chairman & CEO, WaveMaker
What are the technical issues for building AJAX applications in the cloud? What is the most productive way to build AJAX apps for deployment to EC2?

Using the Cloud to Build Cost-Effective, Highly-Scalable Web Apps
Jeff Barr - Senior Evangelist, Amazon
A review of Amazon's multi-year effort to provide software developers and entrepreneurs with the technical and business innovations

Comet

HTML 5, WebSocket , and Comet - The Future of the Web
John Fallows - Co-founder & CTO, Kaazing
This session will provide an in-depth look into the use of HTML 5 WebSocket and the techniques and technologies required to build Comet applications with it.

Using Comet to Create a Two-Player Web Game
Arun Gupta - Evangelist for Web Services/Web 2.0 Apps, Sun
Using AJAX and Comet, this presentation - aimed at newcomers to Comet - walks through the process of creating a simple tic-tac-toe game.

Dojo

Practical Thin Server Architecture with Dojo
Peter Svensson - Owner, Mashup Station
Practical advice for implementing all rendering of data in the browser, leading to a much thinner server, focused on business-logic only.

Using the Dojo Toolkit to Create AJAX-Powered Forms
James Harmon - President & senior trainer, Object Training Group
This session will demonstrate how to quickly and easily add AJAX capabilities to standard HTML forms using the Dojo toolkit.

Enterprise RIAs

Enterprise RIA – Real Examples and Lessons Learnt
Jnan Dash - Chief Strategy Officer of Curl
Attendees will learn the requirements to build an enterprise-class RIA, why and where many current RIA technology platforms fall short.

Extreme RIA: Developing Customer Solutions in an Evolving Landscape
Christophe Jolif - Lead Software Architect, ILOG
With a live RIA demo on many different platforms, this session will describe requirements of RIA, the market acceptance, and technical limitations based on various approaches.

Flex

Flex, Flash and Loosely Coupled On Demand
Michael Oliver - CTO, Corent Technology
Learn how you can create an On-Demand Authoring Environment for creating RIAs bound to any database or web service using Flex 2 and Flash CS4.

Google Web Toolkit

Building Rich Internet Applications using Google Web Toolkit (GWT )
Karthik Shyamsunder - Principal Engineer, VeriSign
Introduction to the GWT framework - for Java technology practitioners who want to build rich Internet applications.

iPhone Development

Web Apps for the iPhone
Kevin Hoffman - Editor-in-Chief, iPhone Developer's Journal
Duplicating the iPhone look and feel in Safari. Make your web application just like a native iPhone app.

Understanding iPhone JavaScript Extensions
John Fronckowiak - President, IDC Consulting
This session introduces the JS extensions introduced by Apple and shows practical examples of their usage.

iPhone in Action: Web Development or SDK ?
Christopher Allen - Host, iPhoneWebDev.com
This session will highlight the advantages and disadvantages of creating optimized web applications using web languages or writing native programs using the iPhone SDK and will discuss ways to hybridize them, creating integrated projects that utilize the best of both worlds.

Creating On-Demand Enterprise Applications for the iPhone
Dave Carroll - Principal Platform Evangelist, Salesforce.com
In this session Dave Carroll will demonstrate how developers using the MVC development approach provided by the Force.com platform can shape the presentation of data to a specific context.

Scaling Web Apps to Meet the iPhone Challenge
Guy Naor - CTO, Morph Labs
This session by the CTO of Morph Labs will demystify what it takes to build a web application that can scale to the millions of users in the iPhone ecosystem.

Mobile Collaboration Using the iPhone
Marcus Franz - Co-Founder and CTO, BF Blogform Search
The iPhone is a very successful mobile device. This session shows how to use it for business.

JavaScript

JavaScript : The Good Parts
Douglas Crockford - Discoverer of JSON; Architect, Yahoo!
This session will expose the goodness in JavaScript, an outstanding dynamic programming language with more than its share of bad parts.

Server-Side JavaScript – All the Cool Kids Are Doing It!
Ian Selby - Owner, Gen X Design
In this session that no developer who uses JavaScript or ActionScript will want to miss, delegates will learn how to put their JavaScript skills to work on the server side using technologies like Mozilla Rhino and Aptana Jaxer, which embeds the entire Mozilla browser on the server side.

The Beauty of JavaScript
Mike Girouard - Sr. Developer, Magnani Caruso Dutton
This session spotlights some some patterns surrounding JavaScript's most elegant features such as closures, lambdas, object and array literals, object prototypes, private members and dynamic scope resolution.

Mashups

Showtime : Bringing the Co-Web to a Screen Near You!
David Boloker - CTO of Emerging Internet Technologies, IBM
How a Showtime Co-Web application uses the same standards as a normal mashup - OpenAJAX plus XMPP, RTP/RTSP and H.264 - yet remakes the mashup as the Co-Web.

Building AJAX Mashups with Google APIs
Chris Schalk - Developer Advocate, Google
This session will cover how to integrate various Google APIs including Google's AJAX APIs including Maps, AJAX Search and Feed into superior AJAX mashups.

Mobile Issues

Preparing Your Brand for the Mobile Web Experience
Evan Gerber - Principal Consultant, Experience Design, Molecular
What do users expect from their applications, what are common usability mistakes, and how can you recognize emerging design patterns in the mobile Internet?

OpenAjax Alliance: Browser Engine Access To Mobile Device APIs
John Ferraiolo - Operations Manager, OpenAjax Alliance
How Web developers, using HTML and JavaScript, can achieve the same power as C++ and Java and produce next-generation consumer and Enterprise Web 2.0 applications.

FLEX + AIR + Mobile
Nicholas Thomas - Co-Founder & COO, Finicity
This session will cover migrating from AJAX to Flex, the advantages/disadvantages that Flex has as the primary client for a consumer web-based SaaS product.

Open APIs & Toolkits

Building AJAX Mashups with Google APIs
Chris Schalk - Developer Advocate, Google
How to integrate various Google APIs including Google's AJAX APIs including Maps, AJAX Search and Feed into superior AJAX mashups.

Building E-mail Apps
Andy Denmark - VP of Engineering at TripIt.com
Given the mass acceptance and value of e-mail, what apps can be built on top of this well-tested, scalable and ubiquitous infrastructure?

Building Rich Internet Applications using Google Web Toolkit (GWT )
Karthik Shyamsunder - Principal Engineer, VeriSign
Introduction to the GWT framework - for Java technology practitioners who want to build rich Internet applications.

HTML 5, WebSocket , and Comet - The Future of the Web
Jonas Jacobi - Co-founder & CEO, Kaazing
This session will provide an in-depth look into the use of HTML 5 WebSocket and the techniques and technologies required to build Comet applications with it.

OpenAjax Alliance: Browser Engine Access To Mobile Device APIs
John Ferraiolo - Operations Manager, OpenAjax Alliance
How Web developers, using HTML and JavaScript, can achieve the same power as C++ and Java and produce next-generation consumer and Enterprise Web 2.0 applications.

Practical Thin Server Architecture with Dojo
Peter Svensson - Owner, Mashup Station
This session gives practical advice for implementing all rendering of data in the browser, leading to a much thinner server, which focus on business-logic only.

SaaS

RIAs & SaaS - Like Bees & Honey
Paul Giurata - Managing Partner of Catalyst Resources
This session will identify how RIAs can expose internal business systems to automate the marketing, trial, purchasing, configuration, support and social referral processes that are essential for scalable and profitable SaaS

Security

Do RIA Widgets Open Security Back Doors?
Neil Smithline - Consultant, OneStopAppSecurity.com
This presentation, via code snippets, flow diagrams, and other means, discusses how to write an RIA widget that avoids common security pitfalls

Silverlight

Building Rich Internet Applications Using Microsoft Silverlight 2
Brad Abrams - Group PM for the UI Framework, Microsoft
Learn how to use Visual Studio to create applications, how to create UI using XAML markup and code, how to retrieve data from a the web, and how to manipulate data with XML and LINQ

Spice Up User Experience with Silverlight
Sue Googe - UI Architect at Edream Solutions
How to build a Silverlight application from start to finish, as well overall strategy why we should or shouldn't use Silverlight.

Social Software

The Business Value of Social Networking on Corporate Intranets
William Cava - CTO, Ektron
This session will demonstrate why social networking is more than just marketing buzz



User Interface & User eXperience Issues

User Experience and RIAs: How Does It All Come Together?
Laurie Gray - Senior UX Designer, OneSpring
This session will discuss the foundation and importance of the application of cognitive science techniques to the process of designing and building a rich web application.

Coding the UI: Lessons from ebookers and Orbitz
Mark Meeker - UI Engineer & Architect, Orbitz Worldwide
How to build a presentation tier (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) that meets the goals of internationalization, accessibility, has rich AJAX interactions, and is faster and easier to develop in.

Crafting Rich Web Interfaces
Bill Scott - Director of UI Engineering, Netflix
Bill Scott of Netflix summarizes his study of rich interaction with just six design principles - each illustrated with a set of design patterns and real world examples

Design-based Web Application Development
Rob Tweed - Co-founder, M/Gateway
This session will explore this issue of whether designers need to learn programming or whether programmers need to learn design - or both.

IA and RIA - You Know More Than You Think You Do
Adam Polansky - Principal Information Architect, Travelocity
In this session Travelocity's Principal Information Architect will share his experience and some things he has learned about RIAs that validated much of what he already knew.

Reporting Portals - Creating the No-Pain, All-Gain Customer Experience
Tatiana Rafique - Software Development Manager, SS&C Technologies
This session will provide some guidelines for creating a rich User Interface for reporting portals, providing a no-pain, all-gain customer experience.

Web 2.0 & 3.0

Who Says Web 2.0 is Hard? Modernize Your Applications Without Needing a PhD in AJAX
Chris Laffra - Development Team Lead, EGL Rich UI, IBM
This session provides an overview of how Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) capabilities help dramatically simplify the construction of rich user interfaces.

Web 3.0 and the Age of Intelligence
Jon Doyle - VP of Business Development, CommuniGate Systems
This session will map out the world of the Semantic or Pervasive Web, exploring the unique benefits for end users, as well as opportunities for businesses.



AJAX & RIA Technology Providers and Contributors in 2008-2009
The following companies are among the providers and contributors of AJAX & RIA technology: 1&1 Internet AG, 3Tera, 4D, Accenture, ACCESS Systems America, AccuRev, Active Endpoints, Active Inquiry, ActiveState, Actuate, Adaptive Blue, Adaptive Path, Adobe, Agitar Software, Ajax13, Akamai Technologies, Alfresco, Allurent, Altova, Amazon.com, AppApliance, Appcelerator, Appeon, Apple, Applibase, Apress, Aptana, Ask Pivot, ASPAlliance, Asperon, Astreya, Altassian Software Systems, Avenue A/ Razorfish, Aztecsoft, Azul Systems, BackBase, Barracuda Networks, Baynote, BEA Systems, Black Duck Software, Blogtronix, BlueFolder, BlueTie, Borland, Bottomline, Bungee Labs, CambrianHouse, Canoo Engineering AG, Cassatt, Cast Iron Systems, Catalyst Resources, Cenzic, CG Principals, Cherry Road Technologies, Chordiant Software, CIGNEX Technologies, Cisco Systems, Cision, Citrix Systems, Claria Corporation, Clearspring, CMS Watch, Codign, Coghead, Cognizant Technology Solutions, ComponentArt, ComponentOne, ConceptSolutions, Conduit Connect, Conference Guru, Coradiant, CoreSpeed, Corizon, Crescendo Networks, Crosscheck Networks, CSS Group, cStar Technologies, CSW Group, Curl, Cynergy Systems, Dassault Systems, DataDirect, Day Software, dCongo, deCarta, Dragonfly Software Solutions, DreamFace Interactive, Dynamic Toolbar DTX, DynaTrace, E*Trade, Edream Solutions, EDS, EffectiveUI, Egnyte, Elastic Path Software, Elementool, eLink Business Innovations, EMC, Encanvas, ESRI, ESRIA, Etelos Systems, etouch, Evans Data Corporation, Ex Machina, Exadel, eXo Platform SAS, exorbyte, Experian, F5 Networks, FAST, Feedback FX, Fig Leaf Software, Fiorano Software, FiveRuns Corporation, Foedus, Foldera, Force10 Networks, Fortify Software, Forum Systems, Fotango, Freewebs, froglogic, Funambol, FundingPost, Fusion Technologies, GemStone Systems, Genuitec, Gizmox, Glassbox, Global Computer Enterprises, GoGrid, Gomez, Google, GreenHat Software, GreenPoint, GroupLink, Groupware Technology, HCL Technologies, Helmi Technologies, Hitachi, HP, Hurox, Hydus, Ibiza Software, IBM, ICEsoft, IDV, idyna TECH, IEEE, ILOG, Impetus, iNetOffice, Infinlogic, Infragistics, Ingres, Inimit Technologies, Innominds Software, Innoopract, Instantiations, Intel, IntelliObjects, Intellium, Interactive Networks, InterSystems, Intuit, IONA, IP Unity, Isomorphic Software, IT Mill, ITtoolbox, Izenda, JackBe, JadeLiquid Software, Jaduka, JasperSoft, Javeline, JBoss, JetBrains, Jive Software, Joomla!, Kaazing, Kapow Technologies, Kasamba, KCSA Worldwide, Keane, Keynote Systems, KNOVE Software, Krugle, Laszlo Systems, Lawson Software, layeredtech, LeapTag, Levanta, Liferay, Lightstreamer, Liobridge, Lombardi Software, Lookout Software, M/Gateway, Mainsoft, Mapsolute, Marathon Technologies, MaxiScale, MB Technologies, Mercury Computer Systems, Metia Software, Microsoft, Midnight Coders, Mindquarry, Mindshare, MindTouch, Molecular, MomentumSI, Murano Software, NDMC, Neocleus, Neotys, Netfective Technology, Netmite, Newput Corporation, Nexaweb, Nextapp, NextAxiom, Nirvanix, Nitobi, Nokia, Northwoods Software, Novell, Novulo, NSIcom, OASIS, ObjectWave, OHM Systems, One Team Technologies, OpenLink Software, OpenLogic, OpenSpot, Openwave Systems, OPNET Technologies, OpSource, Oracle, Originate Labs, OSAF, Parasoft, Passport Corporation, Pathfinder Technologies, Pentaho, Perforce Software, Pervasive Software, Pixsy Corporation, Plaxo, Polaris, Prequent, Primavera Systems, PushToTest, QLogic, Quasar Technologies, Quasidea Development, Quest Software, Racepoint Group, Rackable Systems, Radialpoint, RadView Software, Raining Data Corporation, Real Networks, Reareden Commerence, Recursion Software, Red Hat, Roaring Penguin Software, Roundarch, Salesforce.com, Sandvine, SAP, Saven Technologies, Scalix, Semotus Solutions, Serebrum Software, Servoy, SharpStyle Labs, SkyCom Corporation, SkyFire, Skyway Software, SnapLogic, SOA Software, Sofia Technology, Software AG, Software FX, Software Research, SolovatSoft, Sonic Software, Sonoa Systems, SoonR, Sourcio, SpanStrategies, Splunk, SST, Stampede Technologies, Starcom Worldwide, StartForce, Strangeloop, StreamFoundry, Sugar CRM, Summit Software, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Tavant Technologies, Telcontar, Tele Atlas, telepark, telerik, Tellme Networks, Tersus Software, ThinkFree, Thinwire, TIBCO, TMP Worldwide, TopQuadrant, TansFirst, Trivera Technologies, UI Foundry, Userplane, Valtech, Value Labs, Venyo, Vertex Logic, Vignette, Virtua, Virtusa, Visible Measures, Visual Mining, VMware, Voxeo, WatchFire, WaveMaker, Web Spiders, WebEx, Webtide, Whizlabs Software, Wily, WorcsNet, Wrike, Wrox, WSO2, Xenos, Xignite, Xucia, Xythos Software, Yahoo, Zapatec, ZCubes, Zimbra, ZOHO and Zoovy.