ElementRiver Launched to Provide Open Source Platform and Services for Flex Development

ElementRiver has been launched to provide consulting services and an open source Flex development platform to the growing market of Flex developers looking to create rich Internet application (RIA).

Officials said the services will range from full project lifecycle to mentoring and project management to supplement an organization's lack of experience in RIA development.

ElementRiver is the brain child of Chris Gross, who has been appointed as CEO of ElementRiver. Gross is an IBM (News - Alert) veteran who has got more than 10 years of experience in the field of user interface (UI). ElementRiver founders have significant experience with the open source community including creating the Eclipse Nebula project.

“We have been seeing more and more enterprises look to Flex to give them a better end user experience,” Gross said. “In that move to Flex there are some challenges that ElementRiver hopes to help enterprises meet through consulting services and our soon to be released platform.”

ElementRiver plans to release an open source project later this year. This, according to officials, will provide a platform for Flex developers to be more productive and to ease the learning curve when moving to this emerging technology.

As ElementRiver platform gains community support, ElementRiver will provide additional components to enrich the developer experience. The ElementRiver team is passionate about helping the creation of a rich UI experience for applications to improve end user use and experience, officials said.

This open-source initiative will be provided with additional add-ons over time for a fee.

ElementRiver is located in Reston, Va., the heart of the Dulles Technology corridor. Later this year the open source project will be released with its own site under the open source standard.