Rich Internet Applications pick up the ball where plain Web applications dropped it: they promise to bring the power of desktop applications to the Web. Desktop applications almost went out of fashion with the advent of Web applications. But most people still prefer the rich user interface (UI) and interactivity of desktop applications such as Outlook compared to their Web-based siblings such as GMail and Yahoo! Mail. In many cases the convenience of ubiquity compensates for the inferior or cumbersome user interface.