I suppose you know both OpenLaszlo and Backbase if you know Morfik or are serious about Web 2.0. The big news is that OpenLaszlo, which was traditionally a Flash-based client, now has (in alpha stage) support for a DHTML runtime. Check out their LZPiX demo — it is awesome (they have it both in Flash and DHTML; for the DHTML version Fireforx 1.5 is required as of this writing).

While Morfik is a complete integrated development environment for web applications (xApps in their parlance) both Backbase and OpenLaszlo are “only” client-side UI toolkits, but very capable ones. Morfik will have to add some eye-candy, too. Hmmm… stay tuned ;-)

I have been developing interactive software for twenty years now and it is encouraging for me to see and experience how all this new Web 2.0 stuff is advancing usability. Of course all these technologies are only tools that can be used for good or wrong, but there are a lot of new applications developed with these tools that are really pleasant and easy to use (KISS, anyone?).