Force.com is an extension of Salesforce.com - the powerful customer relationship management (CRM) suite of cloud-based software that has been very successful in the past few years. Salesforce.com has always made extensive use of Flash-based application widgets, and now they're extending their component set to developers with the release of a special version of Flash Builder 4 specifically for development against their cloud service, Force.com.

Though the "key features" list on the development page reads like a list of existing Flex and AIR capabilities, there really is a lot of value in the Force.com integration components. The large component set either interacts with Force.com services directly or makes common tasks with CRM data simple. It also contains extensions to Flash Builder itself that add new project types such as the "Offline Briefcase Configuration", which seems to be a customized AIR project with some Live Cycle features baked in and a different set of wizards for quickly pulling in a Force.com WSDL.

Force.com's goal in this is obviously to have make it easier for developers to build applications against their cloud service and this component set certainly seems to do that, but I wonder why they didn't released it apart from a full installation of Flash Builder. Most developers have their own additions to the Flash Builder environment, and many run it as a plugin for the larger Eclipse platform. Why not release the Force.com plugins as plugins? The Force.com developers page breaks it down pretty clearly: Flash Builder for Force.com is just Flash Builder premium plus some Live Cycle DS and some custom plugins for Force.com integration.

If Adobe wants to continue using Eclipse as the backbone for Flash Builder they should embrace the Eclipse model of IDE development - a plugin based model that allows developers to pick and choose from a huge set of tools rather than needing a fresh install whenever they want to add something. Flash Builder for Force.com has a great set of components that will certainly enable developers to do powerful things with Salesforce.com's already impressive offering - I just don't need yet another installation of Eclipse on my computer.

More reading:

• Force.com homepage


• Developer Force blog post announcing the release of Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com


• Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com Download Page


• Force.com Flex quickstart tutorial

Read more from RJ Owen.