Mozilla to release Prism, an open-source Silverlight and Adobe AIR competitor

By Murad H, BUSINESS 2.0 PRESS
Published: January 17 2010, 12:54 pm EST

mozilla-prism-logoMicrosoft Silverlight and Adobe AIR are cross-device platforms that run advanced web applications locally on computers.

Mozilla is now readying the release of their open-source project, Prism, which will make it even easier for you to turn most web pages into applications usable directly from your computer.

The current Prism beta that is available is very stable, and according to a source from Mozilla, Prism will be stable enough to be bundled with the upcoming Firefox version 3.6.

Prism works like this: while you are on a web page, simply right-click, and turn the page into an app via the option, and that’s it, you’re done. You can also manually enter URLs into Prism to create applications. Prism currently works on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.

prism diagram Mozilla to release Prism, an open source Silverlight and Adobe AIR competitor

So you might be asking yourself what all of this is about, essentially, the apps that run on these platforms are richer in features compared to apps within web browsers. Prism (with the other platforms) could make life easier for you. For example, you can head over to the FedEx website, and create an app to easily use from your desktop to track parcels. Another example is the NASDAQ Market Replay app (on Adobe AIR), a stock market analysis tool that works well because of the ability to store and manipulate significant amounts of historical data from the web thanks to Adobe AIR. Other possible uses are to create apps from your favorite email service like Gmail, that will allow you to get notifications on your desktop when new emails arrive. For example, if you get your email with Yahoo Zimbra, the current app displays notifications as emails arrive, as seen in the screenshot below on the Mac OS X dock.

prism zimbra mac Mozilla to release Prism, an open source Silverlight and Adobe AIR competitor

The main advantage for Prism is that because it is an open-source project compared to proprietary technology used by Silverlight and Adobe AIR, opting to develop for Prism could cost companies less and could be a faster process with more extensive available support.

Despite the popularity of AIR and Silverlight, Mozilla has one significant competitive advantage: Firefox. With over 300 million downloads of the popular web browser, bundling Prism, a lesser known technology to the average computer user, could spark mass adoption assuming the users find value in using the apps on their machines locally compared to accessing their favorite services from their respective browsers.

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Questions about this post? Please contact Murad H at murad@business2press.com

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  • peter
    I think its going to do well, its faster for people and the fact it seems like Mozilla will push it with Firefox, its surely going to takeoff
  • Greg
    The Prism logo at the top of the article is linked to the Silverlight website. Try this instead - http://prism.mozilla.com/
  • Sasha
    even if these technologies don't seem very innovative, we are moving along nicely to build upon these "trivial" technologies.....I personally don't believe they are trivial at all...they will facilitate quicker communication and information flows in the future...they just need to let developers make apps directly for these platforms to really harness their power
  • This only has potential if I, as a site owner, can build my own downloadable executable pre-loaded with my site. If users have to download it, run it, come to my site, create it... that's useless to me.
  • CSK
    IMO the biggest advantage with this kind of technology is that you DON'T have to download any executable.
    I prefer running applications in a sandbox-enviroment like the browser.
  • Chan
    why can't u put a button or something on your site that will download it for your user? that way, they see it, its there and they can do it.
  • Joel T
    now, is it just me... or does the Prism logo look remarkably similar to the Grapher icon (the utility app on OS X)
  • :-)
    I believe you meant "proprietary technology" and not "preparatory technology".
  • Hey smiley lol, we've gone ahead and fixed that, thanks for bringing it to our attention.

    Regards
  • RoyP
    why are these companies making redundant products? why do i need to access gmail from my taskbar or dock on the mac, when my blackberry sits right in front of me on my desk....so not only do i have my mobile phone and I can leave my browser opened with gmail opened (which will display new messages automatically without refreshing), but now i apparently need another desktop gmail app...where's the innovation ladies and gentlemen?
  • Web-ad-Min
    It is not limited to gmail. I'm a web admin and it is very convenient for me to run google analytics on my secondary display and i have it set up so that google analytics via prism starts with my OS.
  • :-|
    It isn't redundant if it has more features. The innovation lies in what is possible with it.
  • Evan Wright
    they do it cuz we need these things and they need to sell something to us lol
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