Microsoft licenses Adobe's FlashLite for Win Mobile phones

Apple may not be keen on licensing Adobe's Flash technology for its iPhones, but Microsoft isn't showing the same reticence.

On March 17, Adobe announced that Microsoft had licensed Adobe's FlashLite technology, enabling Windows Mobile phones to run Flash.

Microsoft quietly noted last week that it would release Version 1.0 of its own Flash-competitive technology, Silverlight, running on Windows Mobile 6 phones in the second quarter of 2008.

Microsoft just released a first beta version of Silverlight 2.0, which its executives have said will ship in final form later this fall, but no word on when Silverlight 2.0 will run on Windows Mobile.

Microsoft also has not said when and if it will make Silverlight available on Apple's iPhone. Microsoft execs said they were worried that Apple was going to tightly control, via high licensing fees and an overly stringent review process, which commercial software vendors would be able to release software for the iPhone. It sounds like Apple is doing that, based on recent coverage of the intricacies of its iPhone SDK licensing terms.

In addition to licensing the FlashLite 3.X browser plug-in, Microsoft also has licensed Adobe's Reader LE software, which allows users to view PDF documents on mobile phones.

Neither Adobe nor Microsoft has provided so far a timetable for when FlashLite or Rader LE will be available to Windows Mobile phone vendors.