Is Adobe Air going to follow a pdf like trend or die like the vhs/dvd combo unit

Just recently I watched a talk from Francisco Tolmasky at FOWA in which he briefly compared some technologies such as Air to a dvd/vhs combo. With all the hype around cloud computing it was a fair comment and got me thinking a little further.

I currently am just about to start a big project for our school catering company la Fringale and one of the solutions we had in mind was in fact adobe air. We thought that it was the happy medium between desktop and cloud computing by which we could fully implement our solution. Francisco got me rethinking the whole process espescially after I demo'ed his 280 North application.

However I am still debating both. Can adobe air progress and harness more of the cpu's power whilst staying in contact with the cloud or will it just fall off the grid like tons of other similar ventures have done. Should we solely focus on a web app? I personally have no idea but I have to make a decision soon.

I envisage that our final solution will probably lie in a hybrid state of this realm. Keeping heavy task localised on the desktop via a univeral application and move everything else to the cloud...

I await your comments...

Is Microsoft leading FaceBook Astray?

It seems to me that the current trend in social apps is starting to move towards universalization and simplicity at a Macro Architecture level. Many projects such as Oauth, the open social stack or even Android are all key determinants in a major industry shift in open and universal standards.

From my perspective, which is both at a developer level and at a user level, it is becoming more and more complicated to render all of the API, framework, and features in one homogenous process. Don't get me wrong, I am a great supporter of heterogenous platforms but the problem lies in accessibility and the openness of standards.

There is a lot of very interesting development at the moment trying to resolve just that. Simply take OpenID for example. It seems like most web apps are jumping on the open standards wagon. 

From my perspective the industry is moving towards a higher level of architecture and development. SAAS is a great example as it seems we have gone through a full process of commoditization and we are looping back to the innovation stage. However in order to ensure the greatest outcome for our development we need to consider componentization. Open standards and universal formats are a keystone in this allowing developers to build more complex and intricate products relying on a simplified and universal base.

Taking this into consideration I am asking you why is Facebook behaving with such a closed door policy. Facebook connect is probably a great tool but it seems to me that this isn't the trend for the future. To me it is yet another framework to learn and stirring my critical chain a little more. So I am asking you: Is Microsoft leading Facebook astray?

Is there a link between Facebook's development strategy and Microsoft's? As an investor in Facebook, MS probably has a certain pull in the decision making process. Moreover Facebook really seems to adopt similar strategies to MS, which have now proven, to be redundant in the long-run. 

I look forward to hear from you on the subject