Rich Internet Applications combine the best of the Desktop, Web and Communications. Macromedia Flash is the medium of choice to deliver RIAs because of its ubiquity and technical superiority.

An IDC report on the Impact of RIAs says,

	Because of their architecture and capabilities, RIAs have the potential to fundamentally change the way companies engage and interact with their Web users, leading to more effective user experiences with top and bottomline results.

Flash RIAs provide the cross platform, cross browser, standards compliant deployment methodology of web. They offer the powerful user interfaces and functionality of desktop applications. This is augmented by the advance level design and animation power of Flash. A RIA designed in Flash allows enhanced user interaction, an example could be a drag and drop operation. The client server communication can be completely transparent to the user. The application is freed from the "click and wait" loop with instant feedback too.

For a business, the reason to go the RIA way is to provide a better user experience. This can be achieved by simplifying the user interaction and providing means to achieve more with less efforts. RIAs can be used to develop new applications that seem impossible with traditional web technologies, they can be used to simplify complex processes like registration, online shopping and data analysis. RIAs can be effectively used to provide an engaging and interactive experience to customers or managers. RIAs can also be made to work with existing web application infrastructure and small modules can be deployed even as part of normal HTML pages.

Having worked on Flash for a while now, RIA skills are now at the back of our hand. Magnet built an ecommerce website, an artist's website and a Pocket PC application using Flash in the early years of RIAs. In September 2003, we started on a ground breaking RIA work for Small Company. They make / made a powerful contact management software in FileMaker. Magnet was chosen to port this application - The PressFile - to a RIA for deployment at HarperCollins worldwide. We have worked on other RIAs too - a mobile phone logo designer application and portfolio section of Magnet website are two other examples of our RIA work.

	Over 4000 hours of development Over 30,000 lines of custom Action Script code Over 15,000 lines of ColdFusion and SQL code Joy, frustration, excitement, achievement One Sexy Rich Internet Application

PressFile has also won third prize in FlashClash - a competition jointly organized by Macromedia and ZDNet India.