Flash Lite goes mass market with Actimagine

Flash Lite has always been an intriguing way for content developers, especially those who have already invested in Flash, to bring their creations to the mobile world. But so far, Flash Lite adoption has been hindered by phone requirements. It takes a beefy phone to run Flash Lite. With this agreement, Adobe now has technology that will allow Flash Lite to run on a much wider range of phones meaning that Flash developers will soon have an even bigger, and I would say more lucrative, market to deliver content.

This comes on the heels of the Laszlo announcement that they are teaming up with Sun to bring OpenLaszlo to the Java ME platform. Obviously the mobile world is experiencing a lot of growth, but I think this new focus on delivering applications and content to a broader range of devices is good. People with high end phones tend to be a bit more tech savvy, and are perhaps willing to put up with more to have the cutting edge. The phones they buy come with solutions to do what they need, and the idea of buying extra Flash Lite content, or running other types of applications just hasn't taken off.

But a more open audience, the consumers who buy ring tones and wallpapers, tend not to have the next generation phones. By bringing Flash Lite to these people, you're making that content available to people who will pay for it. In addition, for emerging markets where high end phones are out of reach for most people, Flash Lite content can now be a reality.

This, combined with the new Laszlo/Sun partnership and the possible mobile implications of Google's purchase of YouTube, means that mobile content all over the world is just going to get better. That's good for consumers as well as developers.