Adobe to deliver AIR for Linux (eWeek)

Well they're not 'flocking' to them for the spiffy interface. 

The appeal is that these services are on the internet and accessible from anywhere. I agree
with the OP, the advantage is networked smart server/dumb client architecture, AJAX is just a
really piss-poor implementation of that on the Web, because that's the only way to do it with
windows.

Taking web interfaces and chaining them to the desktop is combining the disadvantages of both
systems, as far as the user is concerned.

At best this is a way for web monkeys to write desktop applications without having to learn
GTK. That's the beginning and the end of the usefulness of this.