Just scroll through a variety of rich Internet applications listed at the Flex Showcase Web site. People's creativity has no limits, really.

While Flex almost became a household name in the IT shops, AIR is still a new kid on the block. But some organizations not only are pretty comfortable with it, but managed to prepare production releases of their applications with AIR. These are some of such applications:


 AOL Top 100 Music Videos

The AOL Top 100 Music Videos application built on Adobe AIR gives users the ability to browse and play the top 100 music videos from AOL Music, search for more artists and view related artist content. The application also takes advantage of local system resources enabling features such as integrated bookmarking, personalization and sharing.

 eBay
eBay Desktop is an impressive application built on Adobe AIR that creates a persistent connection with eBay customers. eBay Desktop delivers product availability notifications and auction updates straight to the buyer, in real-time, so users don’t have to open a browser and go to the eBay site for the latest information. Users can import auction data into local files, or export data to local files for use with other desktop applications. eBay Desktop has all the features of eBay in the browser and can operate directly from the desktop.

The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc.
NASDAQ Market Replay leverages Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR to deliver a RIA on the desktop that enables financial professionals to replay market activity in detail at any point in time, helping investors understand why a stock price moved in a certain direction. The complexities of equity trading are enormous — with millions of orders continuously traveling different paths to central markets. NASDAQ Market Replay lets brokers show their customers exactly what was going on in the market at the time a trade happened, and Adobe AIR allows for instant response to an extremely large data set, something not possible in a browser.

The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company is launching ShifD, a new RIA that allows users to shift content between computers and mobile devices. ShifD works on - and between - the Web, mobile devices and through a downloadable AIR application, giving people an easier way to consume media on the go. Developers used Ajax technologies to build both the browser-based version of ShifD and the desktop version deployed on Adobe AIR. The New York Times Company is also developing a sophisticated blog reader on Adobe AIR.

Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group's Neopets

Neopets is a fun virtual pet site. You can create your own pets, feed them, groom them, look after them, and watch them grow. Using Adobe Flex and AIR, Neopets is creating a desktop habitat for “petpetpets”, little insects that live on the pets. The application will even use artificial intelligence to guide their behaviors.

Nickelodeon’s MTVN Kids and Family Group's
The company’s first Adobe AIR application, developed in Adobe Flex, is a clever jigsaw puzzle game that encourages Nickelodeon fans to explore www.nick.com, locate pieces of a video, and then drag the pieces to the AIR application on their home computers. Each week a new part of the video puzzle will be released, requiring visitors to scour the web site for the latest pieces. Once assembled, the video puzzle can be played within Adobe AIR and provides a link back to the company’s web site, where viewers can watch the full-length video.

You can find official Adobe press releases at  http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200802/022508AdobeAIR.html

Today is a big day for Flex community, and I send my congratulation to all members of Flex team who made this happen!