Adobe brings Flash to mobile devices

Adobe will bring Flash to mobile devices such as smartphones and netbooks, the software company announced today.

The Flash player 10.1 beta will be released later this year and will be compatible with Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and desktop OS' including Windows, Mac and Linux.

Betas compatible with Google Android and Symbian OS are expected to be available in early 2010.

The company has also announced a project to bring Flash to BlackBerry smartphones.

David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the platform business unit at Adobe, said in a statement: "With Flash Player moving to new mobile platforms, users will be able to experience virtually all Flash technology based Web content and applications wherever they are."

He added: "It will be great to see first devices ship with full Flash Player in the first half of next year."

The company is also heading up the Open Screen Project, which plans to offer a consistent runtime environment for electronic mobile devices.

"We are excited about the broad collaboration of close to 50 industry leaders in the Open Screen Project and the ongoing collaboration with 19 out of the top 20 handset manufacturers worldwide," added Wadhwani.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.