Adobe goes mobile

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Adobe has presented two new techniques for the use of Flash on mobile devices. Flash Home spruces up your cell phone's start screen and provides static home screens with the latest data from the internet. Service providers and users can customise their mobile companions by selecting the news, weather reports, or branding they want. In contrast, Flash Cast is a server push solution for mobile devices; version 2 has just been released. Unlike its predecessor, client 2.0 is more streamlined and faster; it also adapts its channels to your device better.

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The Adobe Mobile Platform, the new Flash platform for mobile devices, is behind both of these services. Unlike Flash Lite (the Flash player for smart phones), the Adobe Mobile Client also runs on low-spec devices and has been optimised for interaction with a new Mobile Server. The application can run using as little as 1.5MB storage and 850kB RAM on a 75MHz ARM7 processor. The operating system reportedly does not matter; up to now, S60 and BREW 3 have been tested, among others. The Adobe Mobile Server solution is provided as an option, not a requirement, and runs on Solaris, BEA WebLogic, and Oracle 10g machines. Reference customers include MTV, NASDAQ, eBay, Reuters, and Dolce & Gabbana.

Adobe claims that Flash is currently installed on 450 million mobile devices, and 80 per cent of all new cell phones can run Flash Lite 3.

(jbe)