Macromedia Announces Flex 2 Product Line and Flash Player 8.5

Macromedia Announces Flex 2 Product Line and Flash Player 8.5

Macromedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: MACR) today announced the Macromedia Flex 2 product line and Macromedia Flash Player 8.5, the foundation for building effective rich Internet applications that blend the responsiveness of desktop software, the cross-platform reach of the web, and the breathtaking expressiveness of the Macromedia Flash Platform. The new products are designed to span the full spectrum of rich Internet application scenarios, from e-commerce product configuration to visual trading applications that integrate with real-time data. Today’s announcement covers several major elements of the Flash Platform:
Flash Player 8.5—the latest high-performance client runtime for rich Internet applications
Flex Framework 2—the core programming model and component library for Flex
Flex Builder 2—an all new Eclipse-based environment for developing rich Internet applications with the Flex Framework. Flex Builder 2, previously code-named Zorn, can incorporate rich media content from the recently released Macromedia Flash Professional 8, the leading authoring tool for creating rich interactive content.
Flex Enterprise Services 2—essential data services, automated testing support, and an open adapter architecture for delivering data-intensive rich Internet applications and deeply integrating with enterprise service-oriented infrastructure
Flex Charting Components 2—extensible components for advanced data visualization

“It is great to see the growing interest in rich Internet applications as organizations look for new ways to streamline customer engagement and internal processes,” said David Mendels, general manager, Macromedia. “The Macromedia Flex 2 product line and Macromedia Flash Player 8.5 will enable millions of developers in organizations large and small to deliver cross-platform applications that will change the face of the Internet by bringing information to life.” Flash Player 8.5 adds industrial-strength programming power on top of the expressiveness introduced in Flash Player 8, creating a state-of-the-art, cross-platform runtime. It includes a new virtual machine that offers faster runtime performance, full runtime error reporting, improved debugging, and ActionScript 3. ActionScript 3 complies with the latest ECMAScript specifications, and increases developer productivity by making it easier to find and fix errors earlier. Flash Player is currently installed on over 600 million desktops and mobile devices globally, and new versions reach 80 percent of computers on the web in approximately 12 months.

Read the complete Press Release