Trillian Gets Flashy

By Sean Corfield
Expert Author
Article Date: 2007-03-16

I initially saw this on Ryan Stewart's RIA blog and then again on Aaron West's TrajikyHip blog:

The next version of Trillian, codenamed Astra, will be based on Flash and will also have a desktop client that provides integration with the host operating system - possibly even cross-platform.

I was a long-time fan of Trillian, back when I was using Windows, but they didn't have a Mac version so I had to switch to Fire and then Adium X.

Via the Trillian site, you can apply to the alpha program - I've signed up for testing the new Mac client.

I think it's very interesting to see projects like this switching from proprietary architectures that are locked into a single operating system to a de facto cross-platform standard - that is based on an open source virtual machine - as a way to not only reach other platforms but also, according to the buzz around Astra, to improve performance.

Creating a desktop client like this also validates Adobe's approach with Apollo, bringing Flash (and HTML) applications to the desktop in an integrated, cross-platform manner.

It's not clear how Trillian is achieving their desktop presence - details are very sketchy right now - but this would be an ideal use case for Apollo and should seed this concept in a lot of minds.

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About the Author: Sean is currently Senior Computer Scientist and Team Lead in the Hosted Services group at Adobe Systems Incorporated. He has worked in the IT industry for nearly twenty-five years, first in database systems and compilers (serving eight years on the ANSI C++ Standards Committee), then in mobile telecoms, and finally in web development. Sean is a staunch advocate of software standards and best practices, and is a well-known and respected speaker on these subjects. Sean has championed and contributed to a number of ColdFusion frameworks, and is a frequent publisher on his blog, http://corfield.org/

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