After returning home from Adobe MAX and taking a day to digest the barrage of information presented at the show, it’s time to sit back and really extract the key points.

In my opinion, the most important element of the show was how prevalent RIAs have become. Nearly every session at the show touched on building rich user experiences. The new twist this year was around AIR and showcasing applications that work seamlessly online and offline. This again is further proof of the pendulum swinging back to the desktop.

Another key trend at the show was mobile. It’s clear from the number of examples and the content that was presented that mobile has hit the radar as the next big thing and is something that will grow and evolve in the coming months.

Adobe also joined industry leaders like Amazon, Microsoft, and Yahoo in announcing its new realm of services. These offerings, although some are very early in the development cycle, are shaping up to be much more interactive, software as a service (SaaS) than some of the competition.

Finally, Adobe previewed some interesting tools to help developers and designers alike embrace these new trends. The scope of which spanned from Director 11 through to Thermo.