On the topic of security as a competitive advantage, a recent Evans Data survey of scripting environments puts ActionScript and Adobe Flex on top. ASP.NET AJAX (Atlas) is in second place.

The open-source projects are, unsurprisingly, rated lower. It’s hard to get as excited about security as it is about flashy features. It’s going to take some time for open-source projects to mature and for contributing developers to start taking as much pride in quality and security as they do in functionality.

“Developers know that strong security is the foundation of great user experiences, and an increasingly important selection criteria for rich Internet application development technology,” said Jeff Whatcott, vice president of marketing at Adobe. “It’s wonderful to see Flex recognized as the security leader.”