Newsletter — June 2010

Articles in this issue

Open: Good for partners, content, and consumers

It seems the Adobe® Flash® Platform is in the news a lot these days as people discuss the defining characteristics of open systems. We on the Open Screen Project team think this discussion presents a great opportunity to reiterate the philosophy behind the Open Screen Project and what openness means to Adobe.

What do we mean when we talk about openness? Adobe believes that content providers and developers should be free to publish their content to the open web and distribute their applications through any marketplace or distribution vehicle they see fit. We feel it's not up to us to decide for users what content is best for them and which content they should and shouldn't access.

This is the fundamental philosophy behind the creation of the Open Screen Project. Now in its third year, the Open Screen Project has brought together close to 70 partners to enable the delivery of rich, multiscreen experiences built on a consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications. The Open Screen Project has created an ecosystem that matches Adobe's vision, leaving the device, platform, and browser choice to consumers. Anything less would stifle innovation and diminish the value that the web can bring to all of its constituents.

"Openness is part of Adobe's culture and heritage from the beginning, with roots in PostScript® and PDF through to our more recent and active work in open source and open content," says Dave McAllister, director of standards and open source at Adobe. "Our commitment is to remain an open company through source, standards, community, and content creation."

Like many other software platforms, the Flash Platform has traveled its own journey to openness. Today, it is one of the most open ecosystems to develop for — and with. The ability to create cross-platform content gives designers and developers creative control to deliver a consistent user experience without worrying about platform, device, browser, or differences in screen sizes. Content providers benefit because an open platform lets them distribute content to the greatest number of users, and that's what has made Flash Player such a ubiquitous runtime for so many years.

Adobe's commitment to openness is evident in its track record. The Flash file format (SWF) specifications are open and unrestricted, so any company can build their own player for SWF content if they choose to. Also freely available are related specifications for the Flash Platform ecosystem: RTMP, FLV/F4V, AMF, and MCD. Flex, the framework for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs), is open source. The Text Layout Framework, which is the same text engine that drives typography in Flash Player, is open source. Open Source Media Framework is an open source framework for building video deployment solutions using the Flash Platform. Tamarin, the virtual machine that powersFlash Player, is available as open source through Mozilla.

Adobe is also at the leading edge when it comes to adopting other critical open or industry standards into our tools and content workflows. So while we continue to innovate with Flash technology, we will put equal energy into providing support for HTML5-based development throughout our creative tools such as Adobe Dreamweaver® software. In fact, Adobe recently released an extension for Dreamweaver CS5 that provides features to help users generate HTML5 and CSS3 code. On the other hand, we include support for proprietary formats such as H.264 video to provide broad support for video content across the Internet. We are also committed to providing support for VP8, an emerging open source video standard unveiled recently at Google I/O. Again, the philosophy here is to support standards — open or proprietary — that allow developers and content owners to reach their consumers through a consistent and cost-effective platform.

The bottom line is that Adobe believes in openness and encourages industry-wide collaboration to foster the broader openness of content. As history has shown, efforts to control user choice rarely succeed in the long run. That's why we feel it's best to embrace openness now and leave it to end users — not Adobe or any other company — to decide how they should consume content.

Learn more about openness at Adobe
Visit the Adobe Open Source site
View the "Open at Adobe" video
Get the facts about Flash
Learn more about the Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 HTML5 Pack

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Adobe and Google bring the full web experience to mobile devices

If there's one company whose commitment to openness will send ripples throughout every part of the industry, it's Google. And as Google's Android™ platform continues to gain momentum, Google and Adobe are working together to maximize the value they can bring to users by opening up the world of content via Adobe Flash Player on mobile devices.

Google's aim of providing open tools and technologies makes it a natural partner of the Open Screen Project. Through the project, Adobe and Google are bringing Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR® to the Android operating system to give users the best web experience possible. Their joint efforts also give millions of developers the freedom to develop and distribute content without creative limitations and the opportunity to own their relationships with their customers. The partnership between Adobe and Google also means Flash Player 10.1 will soon be available on other Android based devices starting with the breakthrough Google TV.

Flash Player 10.1 gives Android users the full web experience

At Google I/O last month, Google and Adobe announced support for Flash Player 10.1 in beta on devices running the latest version of the Android operating system. And recently, Google and Adobe released the final version of Flash Player 10.1 for Android through the Android Market. It runs on devices that ship with Android 2.2 or are updated with Android 2.2. over the air. With more than 75 percent of online video viewed using Flash Player and 85 percent of Alexa top 100 sites featuring Flash Player compatible content, this move finally opens the gate on content and enables the same vibrant browsing experience on mobile devices that people have on their desktops and notebooks.

AIR on Android lets users run apps outside the browser

Adobe AIR on Android will take the user experience to the next level, enabling a brand-new class of rich, interactive applications on all Android smartphones, tablets, and digital TVs. For consumers, AIR apps are a breakthrough because they can be used online or offline, on the desktop or the mobile device. For developers, AIR is significant because it enables content to be created once for potentially many platforms and screen sizes. Adobe is currently conducting a beta program for developers to create standalone AIR apps for the Android Market. Find out more on Adobe Labs. Adobe expects to fully release AIR for Android in the second half of 2010.

Flash Player headed for Google TV

In the true multiscreen spirit of the Open Screen Project, Adobe and Google are taking their collaboration to high-definition TVs with Google TV. As Google announced at Google I/O, Google TV will support Flash Player 10.1 running on HD TVs and enable users to browse the full web — including Flash video, games, and applications — right on their TVs.

Already, the Google Android platform is experiencing rapid adoption, and sales of devices running Android have even surpassed sales of the iPhone, according to a May 10 report from the NPD Group. This momentum, coupled with Adobe and Google's commitment to openness, means that an increasing number of consumers will enjoy freedom of choice when it comes to creation and consumption of content and applications.

See a demo of Flash Player 10.1 on the Google Nexus One phone
Check out Flash Player 10.1 content on the newly announced Google TV platform
Preview Flash Player 10.1 running on Android 2.2
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