Rich Internet Application Web 3.0

A Smart Client is an Internet connected desktop client, which communicates with a server through the use of Web services. They are typically also work off-line, and automatically detect when a user is connected to the Internet. The data is then synchronized between the client and the server. This characteristic alone is probably the main distinguishing characteristic between smart client and a browser's thin client, which does not work if there is no Internet connection.

Smart clients have additional advantages over the old client-server models, such as the ability to be deployed and updated over the Internet from the central server. Also, smart clients are less cross-platform dependent because of their reliance on web services.

The "Rich Internet Applications" (RIA) are based on the concept of "Smart Client", and are used to refer to several other technological approaches including Flash, Java applets and Webstart applications. They basically need a software platform integrating a core, a standard bundling framework, a portable widget toolkit, file buffers, text handling, text editors, a workbench (views, editors, perspectives, wizards) and an Update Manager.

Programmers can build their own applications on top of this softawre platform, instead of having to write a complete application from scratch, they can benefit from proven and tested features of the framework provided by the platform. Building on top of a platform facilitates faster application development and integration.

For more informations see Rich Clients organisation:

http://www.richclients.org/