Adobe Air competes in the space currently known as "Rich Internet Applications" (RIA). The concept here is to make web applications that have user interface elements that are more powerful than what is available in a browser. Competing in the space of RIA are:
- Adobe Air / Flash
- Microsoft Silverlight
- JavaFX
- HTML/CSS/Javascript (as seen from Google's web applications)
The point is to deliver desktop applications that combine features of web applications, such as:
- one-click deployment / always running the most up-to-date code
- a rich set of programmer libraries / APIs compared to what's available in the DOM
- ability to deliver media content outside of what's available in HTML
