As part of its overall push not only to promote AIR,  Adobe Systems is promoting AIR's potential as a workflow and automation tool by offing kits and resources to document managers and PDF developers.

"AIR is seizing the Web development audience," says Adrian Ludwig, Adobe group manager for AIR product marketing, "Realizing that there are a lot of web developers out there, they're doing incredible things for the web using the browser, and that the browser isn't the only way those people need to develop applications."

Ajax, Flex and Flash developers will probably be first on board writing AIR apps. Those in charge of Acrobat and PDF workflows, too, will probably find uses for AIR apps, too.

"If you are in the IT or enterprise developer space, and you're using PDF in the context of some of those applications you build, certainly AIR could be germane to you," says Rick Brown, Adobe director of Acrobat product management, "because it supports PDF similar to the way you might use the browser as the client in some application you might build that supports PDF."

So far, most AIR apps that interact with PDFs have been part of enterprise workflows involving LiveCycle, Adobe's server products that administer PDF forms as well as document rights-management. One LiveCycle client, Ludwig says, wrote an AIR app to help push documents through revision cycles—reminding a particular employee that it's his or her turn to review and annotate a document.

Another potential use for AIR might be for reporting. Ludwig says one prototype app calls up Google Website analytics, grabbing an up-to-date traffic snapshot and then dynamically updating and manipulating results into custom charts and tables—which are then output them to PDF for archiving, meetings, or integrated into reports.

Ludwig advises developers interested in poking around under the AIR hood to visit Adobe's AIR Developer Center. The site shows sample apps and offers the latest downloads—such as a new AIR beta runtime for Linux. He says that developers typically get their feet wet with AIR by writing simple apps that sync browser or PDF content with in AIR on the desktop, using templates provided on the site.

"A majority of enterprise developers are doing Web development at some level," Ludwig says, and AIR provides an entree to the desktop using the Web developer's skill set.

As the technology evolves, developers can keep up to date with new releases, demo use-cases, and get details on how to enter their homegrown AIR apps into contests at Adobe's AIR blog.