Palm Joins the Open Screen Project

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the mobile phone maker Palm is joining the Open Screen Project, an industry initiative dedicated to enable standalone applications and full web browsing across televisions, desktops and mobile devices to benefit from the Adobe Flash Platform capabilities.

Palm's membership of the Open Screen Project will allow for the deployment of the Adobe Flash Player for smartphones on its new webOS platform. The new operating system comes with unique capabilities that, along with the Flash Player, would enable users to enjoy a wide range of Flash based web content, delivering this way a richer and more complete Internet experience.

“We’re excited that our customers will benefit from the creativity and broad range of Flash content and applications created by the millions of designers and developers using Adobe’s popular tools and technologies,” said Pam Deziel, vice president, software product management, Palm, Inc. “As an industry innovator Palm will be an important contributor to the Open Screen Project,” said Michele Turner, vice president for Product Marketing, Flash Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “We’re aiming to bring a rich, Flash technology-enabled browsing experience to Palm’s impressive web browser.”

The Open Screen Project, which is led by Adobe, includes industry leading players that collaborate for delivering a consistent runtime environment for mobile phones, desktops or other devices. The initiative is meant to provide web browsing solutions for a wide range of devices, bringing down barriers to publishing content and applications across screens. The Flash Player for smartphones should reach phone makers at the end of this year.

The upcoming Palm webOS platform, which has been designed for mobile use alone, comes with Palm Synergy, meant to integrate information from different sources into a single view. At the same time, webOS is able to sustain multiple applications opened simultaneously, allowing for an easy switch between them, so that users would experience uninterrupted work flow. The platform syncs with users' needs like it would think ahead on its own.