Top 10 Application Development Products for 2008

by Darryl Taft

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie’s cloud computing platform vision comes to life as Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud operating environment.

Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google, is leading the company’s developer efforts, including Google App Engine.

Cloud space leader Amazon launched its CloudFront content delivery service in November. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, is betting on Amazon Web Services to remain atop the cloud computing space.

Flash Player 10 is the latest version of Adobe’s popular multimedia software for adding animation and interactivity to Web pages.

JavaFX is Sun Microsystems’ entry into the RIA (rich Internet application) platform space. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz called JavaFX “one of the most important technologies to come out of Sun.”

Adobe’s Flash Catalyst, formerly code-named “Thermo,” is a new tool for designers to turn their designs into applications without coding.

Silverlight 2 is the second version of Microsoft’s RIA platform.

SpringSource’s Spring dm Server is a modular, OSGi-based application server. Rod Johnson, CEO of SpringSource, set out to deliver a modular application server, and has with the new dm Server.

Microsoft’s “Oslo” is the core technology behind the company’s software modeling strategy. It consists of a development tool, a new language known as “M” and a repository.

The iPhone SDK allows developers to make applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as test them in an “iPhone simulator.”