The recent announcement by Gartner stating that HTML5 is five to 10 years away for full adoption only flames the fire the statements other industry insiders are making about this platform. Depending on who you talk to, HTML5 is at best an improvement on HTML4 but not as ground breaking as the hype would suggest.

Everyone agrees there has to be a system in place for a single platform capable of adapting to the needs of countless developers so they can innovate and profit from those innovations. The statement from Renée James, senior vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group at Intel (News – Alert) Corporation, "We believe it’s a real solution for where users want to go, and we believe users will demand we go there as an industry," is cautiously optimistic dependent on many factors.


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The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C (News – Alert)) has not ratified the HTML5 standard, and it is expected to do so maybe by 2014 and the final ratification may not come until 2022. This, however, doesn’t mean it is not being used by developers because the HTML5 capabilities are available and it is used in some capacity in many applications. The cautious approach of the W3C is shared by experts who want more information before adopting this platform for mobile, PC and cloud environments.

Recent surveys indicate that 79 percent of developers were planning on integrating HTML5 in some capacity in their mobile application this year, but not entirely in HTML5 and only six percent indicated they would use it entirely.

James said, “With transparent computing, software developers no longer must choose one environment over another in order to maintain profitability and continue to innovate. Consumers and businesses are challenged with the multitude of wonderful, yet incompatible devices and environments available today. It’s not about just mobility, the cloud or the PC. What really matters is when all of these elements come together in a compelling and transparent cross-platform user experience that spans environments and hardware architectures. Developers who embrace this reality are the ones who will remain relevant.”

With the announcement of the Intel Developer Zone, the company hopes to provide businesses and developers access to a single resource for collaboration with peers. It said it will introduce an HTML5 Developer Zone in the fourth quarter of this year focused “on cross-platform apps, guiding developers through actual deployments of HTML5 apps on Apple iOS, Google (News – Alert) Android, Microsoft Windows and Tizen.”

Ultimately, the goal is to have a platform for developers with an open ecosystem where their code will be able to run on multiple devices across different environments. This will save valuable time and resources that could be spent on innovation instead of integration.

Want to learn more about HTML5? Then be sure to attend HTML5 Summit- a DEVCON5 Event, collocated with ITEXPO West 2012 taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX.  Stay in touch with everything happening at HTML Summit. Follow us on Twitter.