The GSMA Mobile World Congress is the stage where Adobe launched a new Flash player tailored to Windows Mobile and Nokia S60 operating systems. Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 Distributable Player is, according to the company, an over-the-air mobile runtime that has been made immediately available. At this point in time Adobe is offering only a Beta build of Flash Lite 3.1 with support limited to Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile devices, and failed to give any indication as to when it planned to deliver the final release of the technology.

“The Distributable Player enables a direct distribution of our mobile player similar to the distribution model for Flash Player on the desktop,” revealed David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “With this new runtime and Adobe’s popular authoring tools, Adobe Flash Platform developers can unleash their creativity, develop new, innovative games and other mobile applications, and reach a much broader audience across screens and different platforms.”

Moreover, Adobe has stressed the importance of what it referred to as the new delivery and monetization options for the technology. In this regard, mobile applications based on Flash can be distributed bundled with runtime installer. The company indicated that the availability of Flash Lite 3.1 is synonymous with moving forward with the Open Screen Project's vision of a runtime which will end up being updated over the air. Via the Open Screen project, Adobe aims to stretch its technology and runtime across a variety of environments from televisions, to desktops, but also mobile devices as well as additional consumer electronics.

“The Distributable Player supports over-the-air downloads for consumers in the United States, U.K., Spain, Italy and India. More countries will be added over time. The runtime is part of a solution that includes authoring support through Adobe Creative Suite 4 and the Adobe Mobile Packager, a desktop tool allowing developers to wrap a SWF file into a Windows Mobile or Nokia S60 installable file,” Adobe said.

Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 Distributable Player is available for download here.