Tag Archives: Silverlight PDC Mobile Flash Player 10.1 Adobe AIR

Mobile Moving the Web Forward

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It’s been a big week for the Web with the launch of Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2 betas. Our announcement was just one day prior to Microsoft announcing the latest beta version of their runtime. Serendipity aside, the Microsoft offering is actually a bit flattering for us on the Flash Platform team. Quite a few of the new features of the Silverlight beta appear to be following in a path created by the Flash Platform confirming that Microsoft sees the need for solutions that the Flash community has been using for years. They are also strongly affirming the role Flash has played in enabling the rise of rich Internet applications and helping people create more capable and usable line-of-business, data-centric applications. But more than anything, I was struck during the PDC with how far the Flash Platform has moved the standard for application development forward over the last two years.

As our CTO Kevin Lynch has been talking about for a few years now, the future of software innovation requires consistent platforms that work across devices. Work on the new Flash Platform runtimes, Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2, is a direct part of the Open Screen Project efforts, which is an industry-wide initiative with one vision: enable people to engage with rich Internet experiences seamlessly across any device, anywhere.

In addition to Flash’s innovation leadership, our work with the Open Screen Project demonstrates another way Adobe is unique among technology platform providers. Flash has a long history of supporting technology integration and industry collaboration, and Adobe has been investing in mobile and the digital home as an enabling technology, not as a competitor. Adobe is in a unique position because our business model complements those of the almost 50 Open Screen Project partners across their many lines of business, and thus Flash can achieve the cross-platform and cross-device reach unlike any other platform. When Flash Player 10.1 ships in 2010, we will double the number of operating systems that the full Flash Player can reach, to include a broad range of mobile devices — not just Windows, or Mac and Linux, but also Solaris, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm webOS and BlackBerry. The same mobile-optimized Flash Platform applications can even be compiled as iPhone apps, providing the most productive way to reach users across all leading platforms.

Flash Platform innovations lead the industry and surpassing its core strengths will be no easy feat:

  • Flash Player is on over 98% of Internet-connected PCs (source: http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html)
  • Flash Player 10 was on more than 93% of PCs in under 10 months
  • Flash Player powers approximately 75% of web video (source: comScore)
  • Over 70% of Web games are built using Flash (source: internal Adobe survey)
  • Adobe is working with 19 out of the top 20 handset manufacturers worldwide to bring Flash support to their devics
  • 7 of top 10 ISVs use the Flex framework (source: internal Adobe survey)
  • Cross-OS/cross-browser consistency
  • Best-in-class design-develop workflow and cross-OS tooling
  • Adobe has always been and will continue to be committed to backward compatibility
  • Flash Platform integrates with heterogeneous IT environments

We have a variety of new resources for developers and business decision-makers to learn more about the Flash Platform. Check them out: