Andrew Shorten’s Adobe UK Blog

With the recent release of Flex 2 and the provision of the free Flex SDK, low-cost developer tooling and optional use of Flex Data Services for applications that require data synchronisation, collaboration/messaging, etc there are many developers and enterprises that are now considering Flex for the first time - in fact to many Flex is a "new" offering in the RIA marketplace.

From a developer perspective, seeing the potential in a new technology and the possibilities it offers can often be dampened when proposing it's use on a project the first question asked by a project manager, IT director or other developers/architects is "Who else is using this technology?" From an enterprise viewpoint there are always concerns with adopting new technologies, irrespective of the licensing costs (i.e. whether it is "free" or has "enterprise" pricing), with security, stability and the impact on the existing infrastructure top of the list.

The good news here is that whilst Flex 2 is a significant release, there are over 600 enterprise/corporate customers worldwide who have built and deployed strategic applications with Flex 1.0 and 1.5. There are case studies, references and customer examples at Adobe.com, but for UK developers considering Flex 2 for a forthcoming project, it might be useful to know about a couple of the high-profile organisations who have already deployed Flex applications in either the UK or Ireland, so that you can answer that "Who else is using Flex?" question if it comes up...

Halifax Bank of Scotland, the UK's largest mortgage and savings provider, uses Flex on the Intelligent Finance website to provide customers with a comprehensive offset mortgage calculator.

Nationwide, the UK's second largest savings provider, uses Flex to provide an interactive savings and investments navigator application, allowing customers to choose the most appropriate financial products.

O2 Ireland, part of the Telefónica group, has built a mobile phone comparison tool, using Flex, as part of their online shopping experience.

Tussauds Group, Europe's no 1 visitor attraction business, enlisted the help of Monochrome to build a single screen checkout experience for the Alton Towers theme park hotel.

Whilst the above are all public facing consumer applications, there are many more customers who deploy Flex-based line of business applications behind the firewall. One such customer that I can mention here is BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster - they have a number of Flex-based applications, including one that enables editors and producers to build, layout and schedule content that is to be pushed out to Sky's set-top boxes (i.e. the experience you get when you press the red button).

As we start to see some of the Flex 2 applications that are currently in development move into production I'll reference them here. If you're working on Flex 2 project and want to let us know about it drop me a note in the comments or to ashorten at adobe.com.

Posted by at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe is sponsoring the 2006 Y Design Awards, which have been launched as part of the London Design Festival. To coincide with Flash's 10th birthday the awards will focus on websites, applications, digital experiences and mobile content created using Flash; but you need to be quick, as you must submit your work by 6th September 2006 to qualify.

Award categories include best game design, best interactive site, best online campaign and best application (a category well-suited to a Flex 2-based submission maybe?). For a full list of award categories visit the Y Design Awards website.

The overall prize for the recipient of the People's Choice award (voted for by the public from the finalists of the individual categories) is an all expenses paid trip to a Flash conference in 2006/2007 for the lead designer/developer, up to the value of £2500.

The awards are open to both individuals and agencies - check out the rules for a full list of entry criteria and the benefits you'll receive from entering.

It is also your chance to get your work in front of Adobe's Mike Downey, as he is on the judging panel...

Posted by at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The August meeting of the London Flash Platform User Group (LFPUG) is tonight, Thursday 24th August - I'll be there as part of the line up to present on Adobe's next generation technology for building Killer Desktop RIAs (codenamed "Apollo").

If you haven't had a chance to see Apollo in action then this will be a good opportunity to learn about the types of applications that Apollo will make possible when it's released next year and take a look at a couple of the early example Apollo apps that we have built.

In addition to my session, there will also be a talk from Glue London about some of their recent Flash video projects and the processes they go through to deliver them.

If that's not enough, Adobe has also donated a full version of Flex Builder + Charting which will be given away to one lucky attendee. If you'd like to join us tonight, head over to the LFPUG website and register... http://www.lfpug.com/24th-august-2006-24082006/

Posted by at 07:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you're interested in learning more about Flex, LiveCycle and the Adobe Engagement platform or you have colleagues who would like to get up to speed on Adobe's technology then check out the UK developer event we're holding on September 6th in London.

I'll be presenting on developing Rich Internet Applications with Flex 2 and also providing a preview of Apollo, our next generation technology for building desktop-based RIAs. We have a full day of sessions planned, with topics including PDF for developers, using Flex and Ajax together, Rapid application development and developing mobile content with Flash. The event details and agenda are online at http://www.adobe.com/uk/developerevent/.

The event is FREE and will be held at Tiger Tiger, which is a great venue - http://www.tigertiger-london.co.uk/venue/.

We're covering a lot of content in a day, so it will provide a good overview for those looking to understand how Adobe's client runtimes, programming languages, tools and servers can be used alongside existing technologies to create rich online experiences.

If you're already a Flex expert and want to help spread the word then please forward info about this event to those who haven't had a chance to see it in action yet!

You can register for the event at www.adobe.com/uk/developerevent/.

Posted by at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello and welcome, my name is Andrew Shorten and I'm part of the technical pre-sales team at Adobe. In this blog I hope to bring together news and information on Flash, Flex and other Adobe technologies, with particular focus on providing a UK perspective in my posts.

Whilst absolutely everyone is welcome here, there is a lot going on in the UK, both within Adobe and the designer/developer community and I want to make sure we can highlight some of the events, seminars and competitions that are happening here as well as reference UK-produced content/applications that are built using Adobe's technologies.

As part of my role at Adobe, I spend time evangalising Adobe's tools, technologies and solutions and work closely with Adobe's enteprise account team to provide pre-sales technical support to key customers in the UK and Nordic region. I joined Adobe through the aquisition of Macromedia and have spent the last couple of year's focused on the Flash Platform, including Flex, Breeze and Flash Media Server, so this blog will likely focus on those products for the time-being, but will undoubtedly expand to include LiveCycle and Apollo going forward.

I'll be posting about some of the forthcoming UK events for designers/developers over the next couple of days... but in the meantime let's keep this interactive - if you've been working on a Flash-based site or you're building an RIA with Flex 2 and would like me to highlight it here as "made in the UK" then email me... ashorten at adobe.com.

Posted by at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)