Adobe's Open Screen initiative boosts its bid for mobile media standards
Adobe and the new project will launch a new Flash Lite media player within a year, aiming to achieve the mobile holy grail of a software platform that really does allow developers and content providers to target multiple devices and operating systems with a single product. Most important to the chances of Open Screen is the support of Nokia - despite its earlier strong endorsement of Silverlight. Indeed, Adobe has leveraged its massive installed base - over 500m mobile devices have Flash Lite installed, and some vendors are even supporting fully fledged Flash on advanced mobile products - to ensure the support of all the cellphone majors. The top five - Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson - are all here, plus Ericsson itself. Among the chipmakers, Intel, ARM, Marvell and Qualcomm have signed up, but not Texas Instruments, and there is only one operator - though an influential one in the mobile internet world, NTT DoCoMo.
In line with Adobe's recent corporate reorganization to integrate its desktop and mobile platforms, the new initiative will focus on a platform that will be consistent with Flash Player and Adobe AIR on desktop PCs and set-top boxes, helping developers and content creators to deliver a unified user experience and reduce their own costs and time to market.
To boost adoption of Flash technology in mobiles further, Adobe has also agreed to remove some of the restrictions and licensing fees attached to its software. It promises to remove all license restrictions on swift file format and FLV/F4V specifications, and all license fees on embedded players. "Just as Flash player is free on the desktop, it will be available to all partners and the industry at large," the company said. In addition, Adobe will publish all device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player and publish the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and AMF protocol for data services.
The first implementation based on OpenScreen will make its debut in mid-2009. Flash Lite will transition to the new format and will eventually be replaced.
Open Screen sits firmly in the most important area of the battle to steer the course of the evolution of the mobile internet. While operators still bemoan the large number of operating systems they have to support, in reality, in the media smartphone sector, the line-up is reducing rapidly to Symbian, Linux and Windows Mobile, plus a few specialists like Apple. The important technologies for would-be mobile powerhouses to dominate are higher up the software layers, with the user interface, development tools and media players. Increasingly, technologies like widgets and Ajax are supporting developers' moves towards offering 'software as a service', delivered using web services to any browser, rather than being targeted specifically at a device or OS. As in the wired internet, the browser and associated technologies like streaming are becoming the main route to multi-platform compatibility, whatever performance and functionality compromises that may entail.
But there are compatibility issues within the browser too, such as unified support for video and multimedia content across different screen sizes and network bandwidths, and with low power. This is the area where Adobe hopes to make Flash Lite supreme, and it will be looking to sign up the content providers, whose support will be vital as well as that of the handset hardware market. In fact, it is already boasting two heavyweight backers, the BBC and MTV. We don't see Texas Instruments staying aloof for long, but Apple remains a party spoiler. But of course, in the cellphone market Apple is a minnow, whereas if half the supporters for Open Screen are paying more than lip service, Flash Lite's successor could become universal very rapidly, probably forcing Apple to change its view. Google will also face the dilemma of whether to push its own content technologies, being developed within its Android project (which shares various members with Open Screen), while Microsoft is likely to license Open Screen as it has Flash Lite, and to seek to position Silverlight alongside it, rather than as a head-on competitor.
Meanwhile, also looking to encourage developers, and increase its own influence, in the rich content market where its handsets have thrived most, Sony Ericsson has announced Project Capuchin, a technology that promises to bridge Adobe Flash Lite and Java ME development platforms. The handset maker says the project will help developers draw on the best attributes of both software stacks to create rich media applications with the functionality, security and content distribution capabilities of Java and the user interface efficiency and richness of Flash. It will release the Capuchin software developers' kit and APIs in the second half of 2008. In line with Sony Ericsson's push to broaden its product base into lower end, mass market phones, the company believes its 'bridge technology' will be applicable mainly to midrange handsets rather than high end smartphones.
