Adobe AIR Showcase

Fabrik, Inc.

Fabrik launching next-generation personal information manager as an Adobe® AIR™ application—providing freedom to manage digital assets across web and desktop applications.

• Download Fabrik beta

Managing your digital assets can be challenging. With hardware, software, and Web applications constantly evolving, people have been unable to manage their content from cameras, handheld computers, social networking sites and other devices via a single intuitive interface. Ideally, consumers should be able to easily access and manage digital photos, music, and video at anytime and anywhere—whether they are online or offline.

"Our Fabrik application changes how people use digital assets by enabling them to access assets from anywhere and easily integrate them with other applications and services," says Matthew McRae, vice president of marketing at Fabrik. "Acting as a desktop control panel for a user's digital life, our new Fabrik web service, launching in beta later this year, is based on Adobe AIR, allowing us to deliver unprecedented flexibility and ease of use for consumers to aggregate, find, manage, and share their growing collections of personal photos, music, and videos," explains McRae.

Designed an unprecedented next-generation service using Adobe Flex™, Fabrik's new service will be deployed on more than three million Fabrik/SimpleTech-branded external storage solutions through partnerships with major retailers and channel partners. Fabrik will also offer it as a standalone service available via a free download.

Extending the Browser

An earlier Fabrik browser-based solution—myFabrik—that was created as an Adobe Flash® and Adobe Flex application has evolved into this new service. Because it is deployed as both a web and desktop service, consumers can easily access content from any computer anywhere, anytime.

Because Adobe AIR acts like a desktop application, it has offered Fabrik unique advantages in helping the company realize its vision and full potential for the service.  Unlike any other service today, the Fabrik service finds and catalogs all content, no matter where it is stored and presents it in a simple and intuitive, drag-and-drop interface. For instance, consumers may have music on their laptop at work, computer at home, and available through a subscription service. The Fabrik application finds the content and presents it on one simple to use desktop interface. When it aggregates content, the application actually hides the actual location—eliminating the need for consumers to worry about where content is stored.

Rapid Development Arena

Working in a totally integrated Adobe development environment, Fabrik developers used Adobe AIR and Adobe Flex to give consumers a more robust experience, coupled with the ability to move from a web browser and to the desktop. "From a development perspective, we've been able to easily port assets from the web portion of the application to the desktop application—saving both time and money," says McRae.