dotConnect for Salesforce is a solution for integrating data of the Salesforce.com cloud CRM and Database.com cloud database with widely used Microsoft data development technologies. It includes Entity Framework provider, ADO.NET provider, and offers Devart Salesforce Source and Destination components for SSIS packages. dotConnect for Salesforce offers local SQL engine, advanced data caching, and other enterprise level features.
dotConnect for MySQL is suitable if you work with .net technologies and frameworks to develop applications but do not want to use SQL Server. This is a very common scenario and the Express edition can solve this problem if you need only basic connectivity features. If high performance is a crucial requirement for you, it may be a real concern. Maybe paid editions can deliver better performance, but you will need to deal with relevant costs.
Over the course of months/years, various security exploits and other issues are discovered and patched in AIR, often requiring you to rebuild and resubmit mobile apps to the various storefronts. This happens often enough that it's worth mentioning as a major con.
While development on Adobe AIR seems to be fairly constant, there is very little communication between the community and Adobe regarding the future and general support of AIR. The track record of Flash (and particularly Flash Mobile) does not inspire much confidence that Adobe intends to support Flash/AIR for years to come.
Adobe AIR does not seem to perform as well (in terms of raw performance, memory usage, framerates, responsiveness, etc.) as other hybrid solutions for certain tasks. For example using shaders tends to be experimental still, and graphic/animation intensive projects often require the use of third party frameworks such as Starling.
Although Adobe AIR is just an SDK without an actual "UI" it's commonly used within Flash, Flash Builder, or FlashDevelop. Considering the integration with Flash IDE, there are very few tools that can compete with its features.
Originally, Adobe AIR was the only game in town, and its blend of flexibility in platforms it could publish to (PC, Mac, iOS, Android), ease of use, and familiarity made it the clear choice. Now Adobe no longer supports it, and we’ve found the transition to Harmon unworkable for us.
We had been using an outsourced company for such projects until we decided to hire our own team and do all of this DB work in-house. So this was our first year of experience with this product. So far, we're very pleased, as are our clients.