Adobe Join Venture with Chip & Wireless Companies
- Filed under: Event News & Updates, Mobile Phones & Devices, Software Tools, Tutorials & Tips
- Date: May 6,2008
May 1 (Bloomberg) — Adobe Systems Inc., maker of the Flash video software, forged an alliance with chipmakers and mobile phone companies to make it easier to create applications that work across personal computers, mobile-phones and set-top boxes.
Intel Corp., Nokia Oyj, Samsung Electronics Co., Qualcomm Inc. and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd. are among the companies in the Open Screen Project, Adobe said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
The project will allow application developers to create programs that work on devices from different companies. To help promote Flash, Adobe said it will remove some restrictions on the software and end licensing fees.
“The idea is to write an application that doesn’t have to be tweaked to run on the different devices,” Gary Kovacs, general manager of Adobe’s mobile group, said in an interview.
Adobe said in March that its Flash Lite software, which lets mobile devices display Web-based video and animation, is available on more than 500 million handsets worldwide. The company expects to reach 1 billion devices by the middle of next year, Kovacs said.
Cisco Systems Inc., LG Electronics Inc., Motorola Inc., Toshiba Corp. and Verizon Wireless are also part of the project, Adobe said. The company has signed up content providers such as the British Broadcasting Corp. and Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks.
Microsoft Threat
Adobe, based in San Jose, California, faces new in the mobile-video market from Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker. Microsoft said in March that Nokia would pre- install its Silverlight video software on smart phones.
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said in March that Adobe’s Flash runs too slowly to be useful on Apple’s iPhone, and that Flash Lite “isn’t capable enough to actually be used with the Web.” Jobs said Adobe needs to develop a third version of Flash with features that fall between the PC version and Flash Lite.
Kovacs declined to say if Adobe is working on such a product.
“Adobe wants Flash to be as ubiquitous on the handset as it is on the PC,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch in New York. “They will want to add Apple to the list of companies they work with.”
Adobe rose $1.72, or 4.6 percent, to $39.01 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have declined 8.7 percent this year.
[www.bloomberg.com]
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