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.
