Rich Internet Application Advantages

What Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and its value are in today"s software industry. Rich Internet Applications are the piece of software which can be accessed over the internet but have rich interface similar to desktop applications which usually are available locally. In this context Rich Internet Applications (RIA) play a central role by combining the expansive reach of the Web with the richness.

Traditionally internet application restricted by HTML and its features, some efforts were made to enhance the user experience by introducing different scripting languages like asp, jsp, php etc but none of them come close to customer"s satisfaction. There were always organizations who expressed their dissatisfaction at the shortcomings of pure HTML interfaces. On the other way, desktop applications were available which were fat clients having rich and intelligent interface but with big restriction on not accessible over internet. This major drawback leads to rich internet applications with rich and fast interface. RIA applications helps in reducing the congestion thus, improving the performance level. Users can easily create visually appealing images with the help of rich internet applications.

Applications built using Web 2.0 approaches are often called rich internet applications (RIAs). There are number of technologies available to develop RIA like AJAX (synchronous JavaScript and XML) and Adobe Flex/Flash. Experts in industry have debate on which one is better. In reality, however, the two options are not mutually exclusive. AJAX is better for some applications, whereas Flex/Flash is more suitable for others. However, at sometimes the user needs to install certain plug-ins if the browser is not the latest one.

RIA brings a lot of advantage to not only web 2.0 community but also for everyday enterprise applications. Some of the advantages are

More Responsive: Rich internet applications are more responsive then traditional application because it uses client side scripting to request information from server.

Interactive UI: Rich internet applications have more interactive UI. They usually don"t refresh entire UI but only small portion of UI gets refreshed on user"s request.

Less internet traffic and faster processing: As we have mentioned in last point, rich internet application does not refresh entire page and that leads to less traffic and faster processing.

Simplifying online transactions: RIAs eliminate the multi-page for multi-step transactions by presenting all pertinent information to users without leaving the initial environment. This simplifies the process for users who proceed to purchase the product and returns again because the experience was quick, easy and enjoyable.

Addition to above, RIAs have since been widely adopted and proven to deliver tangible ROI to the businesses that deploy them. Measurable benefits include higher customer conversion rates, increased user productivity, and improved customer loyalty.