Adobe is well known for their software to create RIAs(Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop...). In addition to their more popular software is Adobe Flex; Flex has been around for a few years but is now being used more frequently as webpages and applications are becoming more rich. Flex is a development language that Adobe calls a "highly productive" frame work for building and maintaining expressive web applications. Bragging points with Flex are: consistent deployment on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems. My experience with Flex centers around creating user interfaces for Java (generally) backed applications. Here is my opinion...it is extremely fast when combined with Flex Builder or (my preference) the Eclipse Plugin, you can create a sample mock up of your application roughly as quickly as you can in something like PowerPoint, adding functionality is also a snap...drag and drop, data display, videos...very easy with Flex.
If you combine Flex with Adobe Air you can create application that runs outside of the browser. This is really cool...in a few days I was able to create a desktop application for tracking inventory; create, update, delete, and read from / to a database, all displayed with an easy to use and understand interface. Without Adobe Air this would have had to run on a web browser...with Air it is much faster, can be accessed without an internet connection, and can easily be found on the desktop. Adobe Air and Flex are very powerful together. Check out this video on reguarding Air
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