The move from native, OS-specific applications to web applications continues to be one of the biggest "disruptions" in the software industry today, said Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch recently in an interview with the Wharton Business School. "We're a leader in enabling that transition to happen with things like AIR," Lynch noted, adding: "We're focused on taking advantage of that shift, not only with our enabling technologies, but also our applications like Premiere Express, Photoshop Express and BuzzWord."

Kevin Lynch's passion for Rich Internet Applications won him promotion to CTO of Adobe in February of this year, from SVP & Chief Software Architect.

When Adobe's President & CEO Shantanu Narayen announced the promotion he said: "Kevin’s insights and passion for rich Internet applications, and what they signify for the future of software across operating systems and devices, will help enable the next generation of innovation for our customers.”

Lynch, who in 2006 gave an exclusive interview on SYS-CON.TV, in which he outlined his "Beyond the Browser" vision for Rich Internet Applications, joined Adobe as part of the company’s 2005 acquisition of Macromedia. As Adobe’s senior vice president and chief software architect, he led the Platform Business Unit, focused on advancing the company’s software platform for the creation and delivery of engaging applications and content to any desktop or device. He also oversaw Adobe’s developer relations, including the integration of customers and partners in the development process through Adobe Labs and customer advisory councils.

“Kevin has made a tremendous impact expanding our technology vision during his time at Adobe,” said Narayen.

In his new position as CTO Lynch oversees Adobe’s experience design and core technology across business units. As part of this role he continues to drive Adobe’s technology platform for designers and developers, which includes Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Flex, and Adobe AIR.


View Kevin Lynch's exclusive interview live from MAX 2006 with SYS-CON.TV's Jeremy Geelan

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Two of the biggest launches in Rich Internet Application history took place in 2007/2008 when Adobe launched AIR 1.0 in February '08 and Microsoft launched Silverlight (September '07). At the 6th International AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo in October SYS-CON Events is delighted to be presenting major industry keynotes from the two industry executives with overall responsibility for both of those massive richer-web initiatives: Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch and Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform.

Lynch, who will be keynoting on October 21, 2008, is one of the original coiners of the term "Rich Internet Application" back in 2002 and has intimate knowledge of Flash and AIR, the two platforms that - together with Acrobat and PDF - now make up the four platforms which together make Adobe the software powerhouse it is. Previously Adobe's Chief Software Architect, he was promoted to CTO in February '08.

Guthrie, who will be keynoting October 22, 2008, was a founding member of the .NET Framework team and today runs the development teams that deliver the CLR, ASP.NET, Silverlight, WPF, IIS7, and the Visual Studio tools for Web, WPF and Silverlight development. Previously the General Manager of Microsoft's Developer Divsion, he was promoted to Corporate Vice President in February '08.

The Adobe and Microsoft executives head a Speaker Faculty of top industry front-end engineers, UX experts, Web 2.0 pioneers and industry luminaries, including:

• The CTO of Adobe - Kevin Lynch (keynote)
• Microsoft's Silverlight boss - Scott Guthrie (keynote)
• The discoverer of JSON - Douglas Crockford
• The creator of jQuery - John Resig
• Engineering manager of the YUI Team at Yahoo! - Eric Miraglia
• Senior Evangelist, Amazon - Jeff Barr
• Developer Advocate, Google - Chris Schalk
• Architect at eBay - Michael Galpin
• Director, User Interface Engineering at Netflix - BillScott
• VP of Engineering at TripIt.com - Andy Denmark
• Chief dragon-wrangler for Komodo - Shane Caraveo  
• Chairman & CEO of WaveMaker - Chris Keene
•  CSO of Curl - Jnan Dash 
• CTO of Pathfinder Development - Dietrich Kappe
• Sun's AJAX Architect - Greg Murray
• Technology Evangelist for Web Services and Web 2.0 Apps at Sun - Arun Gupta
• Senior Engineer and Designer, Yahoo! - Nate Koechley
• President and senior trainer at Object Training Group - James Harmon
• Lead Developer of the Qcodo Development Framework for PHP - Michael Ho
• VP of Business Development at CommuniGate Systems - Jon Doyle
• Sr. Developer at the creative agency Magnani Caruso Dutton - Mike Girouard
• Lead Developer for the Oracle Fusion Middleware Integration Platform - Rakesh Saha
• UI Architect at Edream Solutions - Sue Googe
• System Operations Manager at EngineYard - Yehuda Katz
• Co-Founder & COO of Concept Solutions - John Krahulec
• Co-Founder & COO of Finicity - Nicholas Thomas
• Principal Consultant, Experience Design at Molecular - Evan Gerber
• Principal Engineer, VeriSign - Karthik Shyamsunder
• Principal Software Developer, Red Hat - Thomas Heute
• Operations Manager of the OpenAjaxAlliance - John Ferraiolo
• Web Theorist, IBM - Andrew Donoho
• Tech Lead of the Spring Faces project  - Jeremy Grelle
• Senior Consultant at SpringSource - Rossen Stoyanchev
• Group Program Manager at Microsoft - Brad Abrams
• Development Team Lead for the EGL Rich UI - Chris Laffra
• Development Manager, UI Framework and Services, Microsoft - Matt Gibbs
• Managing Partner of Catalyst Resources - Paul Giurata
  

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