During its annual MAX 2008 user conference, Adobe presented some of the advancements made to its Flash platform, which include new Flash offerings, new Flex tooling and also a new version of Adobe AIR.

"Our goal with Flash is to enable users to create rich, immersive applications," explained David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "We'll create design tools and developer tools, and the right servers. And one of the key areas of focus for 2009 has to do with workflow across our tools," in an interview with eWEEK.

The offer provides a complete set of tools which will help in the development of Web applications, content and video.

The company previewed its new Flash Catalyst and Flex Builder, which can be used to design and develop application interfaces. Attendees received a beta version of the professional design tools, which are scheduled for release early next year. Adobe Flash Catalyst has been presented earlier this year under the name Thermo

Adobe's AIR includes the open source WebKit HTML engine and also the company's SquirrelFish WebKit JavaScript interpreter, support for encrypted SQL Lite, and Flash 10 technologies like native 3-D transformation and animation. AIR is available now for Windows, with the Linux version currently in development and scheduled for release by the end of this year.

Adobe Labs offer a pre-release of the 64-bit Linux version of Adobe Flash Player 10 and the company also introduced a new cloud-based platform-as-a-service tool, codenamed Cocomo, which is expected to help developers add real-time social capabilities to their Web applications.

"In releasing Cocomo, we are making another leap forward towards enabling developers to deliver rich internet applications powered by Adobe platform technologies," explained Erik Larson, director of marketing and product management for Adobe's Business Productivity Business Unit.

Michele Turner, VP of product marketing and product management for Adobe's platform business unit, said that at this point, Flash powers close to 80 percent of the videos on the Web and this is why the company wants to equip developers with the proper tools needed to complete their tasks. She also added that all of the company’s branding and messaging has been wrapped around the Adobe Flash Platform - "it's just packaged the way it should have been years ago."

Adobe is looking to bring Web-based Flash on every single device available on the market, whether it is a mobile phone or a television. The company works side by side with chip designer ARM Holdings on the optimization process for the Flash Player 10. Flash, which allows developers to integrate video into Web pages and develop rich Internet applications, has had a difficult transition to mobile devices but from this point on, users can expect significant improvements from Adobe and not only.

Microsoft has also stepped into this segment, promoting its Silverlight technology as a good alternative to Flash. Even though the response has been positive, it will take a while for the new offer to become truly competitive.