(first published as a comment at Anne 2.0: Towards Hybrid Ajax/Flash/Java Browser Apps)

When people talk about the future success of Ajax and Flash they take it from the developer’s POV and ask questions like: is it open source, need a plugin, etc. Those questions will have very little to do with the success of either platform. It’s always about the bottom line and that’s cost of development and support.

If the ACME company wants a RMA then they probably don’t know the difference between a socket and a vector shape. They take their idea to a few different design/development firms and say, “how much and when?”

I don’t do Ajax development so I can’t say how long it might take to develop in that environment but I find it hard to imagine that it’s going to be faster than developing with Flex/Flash (Flesh). And even if they can both be developed in the same time for the same cost then there is still the question of support. From an Ajax standpoint there is always the consideration that code will have to be tweaked when new browsers are released. That won’t happen with Flesh.

So I can’t see many design houses that are married to the Flesh approach deciding to add Ajax to their skill set but I can see the Ajax crew developing some Flesh skills. It will start with video and then spill over more and more into just developing as much as possible in Flesh.