We feel one of the biggest differences between Spheres and many other collaboration products is that it is a web-connected application that runs on your desktop. That allows it to take full advantage of a browser-less user experience as well as the very best (in our humble, un-biased opinion:) in cloud-based services. Most other messaging, file sharing, and collaboration products available on the market today are browser-based applications that require an internet connection to use at all. With the advent of HTML 5 on the horizon, the full potential of online/offline applications is just about to see the light of day, but in our view Adobe has done an excellent job of capturing this value in its newest runtime, AIR.
AIR, like Acrobat Reader or Flash Player, is a runtime that installs on your computer. AIR allows us to create an application, such as Spheres, that installs on your desktop, taking full advantage of features common to desktop applications – drag and drop from your computer into Spheres, task bar notifications when new activity happens in Spheres, local synchronization of Spheres data on your computer with what is stored online meaning you have the ability access Spheres when you are offline.
So how about you, what do you guys think? Do you think the ability to use Spheres on the desktop versus in your web browser exclusively, and the ability to take Spheres data with you offline is a key point of interest for you? Does it make Spheres more compelling for you? Less compelling? We’d love your perspective.
