14 DAY TRIAL // Adobe Systems Incorporated has just announced that Microsoft has licensed Adobe Flash Lite software, Adobe's award-winning Flash Player runtime specifically designed for mobile devices, to enable web browsing of Flash Player compatible content within the Internet Explorer Mobile browser in future versions of Microsoft Windows Mobile phones. Microsoft has also licensed Adobe Reader LE software for viewing Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) documents including email attachments and web content. Both Adobe products will be made available to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) worldwide, who license Windows Mobile software.
"We are thrilled to work with Microsoft to add playback of rich, web-based Flash Player compatible content and PDF document viewing to Windows Mobile," said Al Ramadan, senior vice president, Mobile and Devices at Adobe. "Flash has revolutionized the way we experience content on the web and we are excited that Microsoft has decided to extend the experience of Flash technology to Windows Mobile users."
The Flash Lite 3.x browser plug-in for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile will provide users with access to rich and interactive web content created using Adobe Flash technology. As the most popular and ubiquitous format on the Internet these days, Adobe Flash powers many rich and engaging web sites, applications and animations. Adobe Reader LE will allow Windows Mobile users to easily and reliably view and navigate rich PDF content using innovative features developed to improve document readability on smaller screens.
Earlier this year Microsoft announced its partnership with Nokia on delivering Silverlight to Nokia phones. Silverlight is Microsoft's browser plugin that allows web applications to be developed with features like animations, vector graphics and audio-video playback. Considered a competitor for Adobe's Flash, Silverlight will most likely take its market share. Nevertheless, the announcement means that Microsoft will support both Flash and Silverlight technologies that lets developers build multimedia Internet applications that run in browsers.
Adobe Flash Lite and Reader LE availability for Windows Mobile phones will be confirmed later.