Adobe has added Macromedia's products to its portfolio and because of that, Microsoft wants now, even more than before, a piece of the Photoshop maker's market share.

After causing a lot of commotion by announcing a competitor for the .PDF format, the so-called Metro, it seems that Microsoft will also provide an alternative for Flash. Although there wasn't any official confirmation, it is rumored that Microsoft will make at PDC demonstrations of the new technology, known by the name of Sparkle.

Microsoft's partners who saw Sparkle, which could be integrated with Visual Studio, only made general comments, not even them knowing for sure whether it's a runtime or an animation tool.

The same sources which have revealed the news about Sparkle, said that the application will be developed using the technologies acquired together with Creature House Expression.

So far, Microsoft has launched a graphics tool, Acrylic, derived from the same Creature House Expression products, which wasn't too impressive compared to Photoshop.

Microsoft's interest in fields like security and graphics points out that the Redmond giant wants to expand its horizons beyond operating systems.