Adobe building mobile Flash, competing with Microsoft & Sun
Imagine the ability to access flash-enabled content from a G1 phone, Sprint Instinct or Apple iPhone. You can bet that’s Adobe’s vision, the company is working hard to adapt the Flash 10 for higher end mobile devices but it isn’t the only player in the space. Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have their own plans for world domination.
Adobe has been working on a lightweight mobile version of its Flash player for a long time, but this time it wants to go all the way with a fully functional version of Flash 10 for mobile devices. Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Lynch says “We are midst of evolving Flash Player 10 for mobile . . . We’re taking the full Flash Player and making that run on the higher end of the mobile market,” according to CNN.
Sun is already in the game of platforms for mobile devices though with its JavaFX technology. “The primary component of JavaFX is JavaFX Script, a declarative language, intended to make Swing easier to use for interface programmers or visual designers who might be more familiar with scripting languages. In JavaFX Script, the structure of the programming code is supposed to closely matche the actual layout of the GUI,” according to Wikipedia.
Microsoft has been pushing Windows mobile for a while and more recently Silverlight, which focuses on supporting the .NET platform and rich Internet application content.
Adobe has an advantage though with its huge existing base of users in the PC environment. Many of those same users are bound to buy higher end mobile devices and they’ll want to access Flash-enabled content. Some people need more than ubiquitous YouTube videos to be happy.
But even though Adobe has a sound base to build on, so far the iPhone has proven an elusive target. Apparently much of the problem stems from Apple’s exacting standards when it comes to anyone building apps for its standards-setting iPhone.
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