So, the news about the fight are going mainstream.

Olympics set the stage for Web tech fight

SEATTLE--As the world's best athletes competed in Beijing, the summer Olympic games set the stage for a battle between Microsoft and Adobe over the Internet's next big competition.

( Nice simplification. Usual caveats and distortions apply. )

I'm glad to see more and more sources realizing that the real question is not whether RIAs are taking over the web or not, but which RIA platform is getting there first.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am all in favor of Standards. I have built RDF and w3c standards into every piece of software for the last 5 years. This fight between Adobe and M$ is in a lower level: transport, tools, network and technology. Standards will penetrate, eventually ( in fact, the web architecture IS the trojan horse of standards. It is just a matter of time ).

This only means that Semantic agents will look much better than originally planned.