Archive notice: This article was originally published on June 13, 2005. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The “Flash Platform”, which Macromedia presented the previous week, is aimed not least at mobile network operators and handset manufacturers – they are intended to help the software provider achieve further growth. As Macromedia has now announced, the number of mobile devices equipped with Flash Player almost tripled worldwide over the past year from 12 to 35 million. Three of the six leading handset manufacturers had now licensed Flash Lite. The number of network operators offering Flash content and services had risen within the past year from one to a current total of twelve.
The complete system includes, among other things, Flash Lite as a special profile of Flash Player, a range of development tools and a powerful programming model, server technologies and the FlashCast solution for mobile carriers.
“The mobile communications business works somewhat differently from the traditional software world,” explains Al Ramadan, Executive Vice President and General Manager Mobile and Devices at Macromedia in San Francisco: Japan is clearly the pioneer in this sector and the carriers there are already using the Flash Platform very intensively. “Around 15 percent of the Japanese population already have a Flash-enabled mobile phone today,” Al Ramadan points to current statistics. According to a Yankee Group report, Flash is the de facto standard in the Far East.
In the view of Macromedia’s mobile communications chief, developments in Europe and the USA will move in a similar direction for the foreseeable future. Following KDDI and NTT DoCoMo – the leading mobile carriers in Japan – nine other network operators worldwide now offer Flash-based content or services, including T-Mobile.
Compared with the previous year, the number of device manufacturers integrating Flash Lite into their devices has grown from 88 to more than 100, according to Macromedia. They include Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. “By integrating Flash technology into our platform, we want to further drive the spread of smartphones and give network operators the opportunity to increase mobile data traffic and thus average revenue with their end customers,” emphasises Lee Epting, Vice President Forum Nokia.
According to Macromedia’s presentation, the expansion of the “Mobile Content Ecosystem” opens up a range of additional business opportunities for the Flash developer community. The fast-growing mobile communications market has an enormous need for new innovative applications and content that can be developed with the help of the Flash Platform. With Flashcast, the company also offers mobile carriers a complete end-to-end solution for delivering content quickly and securely to end consumers. The push service works in a similar way to subscription TV with its various thematic channels: The content channels are transmitted in the background to the mobile phone via the Flashcast server and can be used offline by subscribers. In this complete solution for mobile operators, Macromedia also provides the necessary authorisation, billing and administration systems.
Further Links:
- Macromedia Mobile
