Andre Charland, CEO of Nitobi, and Ryan Stewart, ZDNet Blogger and Flex Guru, will explore different methods of measuring the business value of rich internet applications. From benefits, to costs, to pitfalls and choosing a technology platform. The goal is to get members of this community together to answer the question: "What will rich internet applications do to help my business?". For those of us who get it's a no brainer, but how do we explain to others and in particular the various stakeholders in development projects. We will examine techniques in UI design, usability testing, user interface patterns, rapid prototyping and development strategies. From there we'll walk through various aspects of risk in RIA, cost containment, benefits analysis and come up with framework for evaluating the effectiveness of a given RIA deployment. We'll then look a various factors that will affect the technology platform decision of Ajax vs. Flash/Flex vs. WPF/E vs ???. Everyone should come away with a better understanding of how RIAs can drive better business results if not a solid framework for measuring the benefits.