Adobe Aim 40% Mobile Panetration in December

• Author: ezpod
• Filed under: Event News & Updates, Mobile Phones & Devices, Tutorials & Tips

  Related Tags: , aapl, adbe, eric, ericsson, intc, iPhone, mot, msft, nok, Nokia, nsdq, nyse, open screen, Qualcomn, s40, S60, Samsung, sne, sony, TOshiba

• Date: May 8,2008

Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) is licensing its video-enabling Flash software for free for mobile devices in an attempt to make the technology as ubiquitous on handsets as it is on PCs. AP reports that the company has also launched the “Open Screen Project,” a broad partnership that aims to provide a more “consistent experience” for Flash across PCs, mobiles and other devices.

The partnership has support from handset makers Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Samsung, Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC), Toshiba; from chipmakers Intel (NSDQ: INTC) and Qualcomm; and content providers including NBC Universal (NYSE: GE), MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) and the BBC among others. Currently, mobile game and video developers have to tweak their applications, “cranking out numerous versions” for them to work across a variety of handsets and devices. Adobe says that it hopes to eliminate this with their project.

Flash Lite currently ships on 500 million devices, out of the over 3 billion mobile phones in the world, making its penetration in mobile devices far less ubiquitous than on PC’s. According to Wired, which spoke to Adobe vice president of platforms David Wadhwani, Adobe has set the goal of seeing Flash installed on one billion phones by the end of the year?or on about 40 percent of video-capable mobile phones. Adobe is also in a race against Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and its similar Silverlight technology. In March, Microsoft struck a deal with Nokia to put Silverlight on its Series 60 (S60) smartphones, Series 40 devices and Nokia internet tablets.

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), no surprise here, is not on the list of supporting companies. Since its launch, iPhone has not supported Flash, much to the chagrin of Adobe executives and to a number of iPhone users who are currently confined to watching video from YouTube, one of the only sites that goes out of its way to reconfigure their videos so they can be viewed on iPhones. in March, Apple Chief Steve Jobs criticized Flash Lite for being too slow for mobiles. Adobe, however, is working on a version of Flash for the iPhone, since Apple’s release of its SDK.

Tricia adds: This issue came up a bit yesterday when Sony Ericsson announced it was melding together Flash and Java to help developers build mobile apps. As I point out in this post, by bringing the two technologies together, developers will get wider distribution. That’s because carriers often don’t support Flash on their decks. In the U.S., this is particularly true with a lot of carriers supporting Brew or Java downloads?so in Adobe’s case it’s not about getting on more handsets, it’s about winning over the carriers, which they’ll still have to do. Smashing Ideas, a Seattle studio likes developing in Flash because they say it can eliminate a lot of the industry’s headaches, namely development time and costs due to porting the game to thousands of handsets, but it has only secured a deal with Verizon (NYSE: VZ) in the U.S. This is the exact reason Sony Ericsson is tackling the problem. By integrating the two technologies, it can download as a Java application and then once it’s on the phone, also use Flash.

[www.washingtonpost.com]

Adobe Join Venture with Chip & Wireless Companies

• Author: ezpod
• Filed under: Event News & Updates, Mobile Phones & Devices, Software Tools, Tutorials & Tips

  Related Tags: Cisco, gary Kovacs, Intel, iPhone, JupiterResearch, LG, Michael Gartenberg, Mototrola, Mtv, Nasdaq, Nokia, open screen project, Qualcomn, Samsung, Silverlight, sony, Steve jobs, TOshiba, Verizon, Viacom

• 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]