Adobe strives to bring Flash to every smartphone platform

Adobe is now making a serious effort to get Flash-based games and videos to run on both PC platforms and mobile devices without modification. And no wonder--according to Gartner, smartphone sales increased by 13 percent, to 36 million units, while PC shipments dipped 6.5 percent, to 67 million, in Q1 this year.

Adobe will have to re-engineer its Flash software engine, as well as write programs for mobile devices using Flash. Later this year, Adobe will be releasing a version of Flash for phones running operating systems from major phone makers such as Palm, Google and Nokia.

Adobe faces a few hurdles, going forward. For example, time frames for working Flash on Apple's iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry remain conspicuously absent. While both Apple and RIM declined to comment, what is known about the delay for the formal release is that it isn't entirely technical. "We need to have Apple's agreement before we can do it," Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch told the Wall Street Journal.

Analysts say that Apple might want to differentiate it's devices from other smartphones by the software running on them. While this sounds intuitive from a business point of view, it also inevitably leaves customers with fewer options.

For more information about the story:
- check out the article at Wall Street Journal

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