Andrew Shorten @ Adobe

AgencyNet are the digital agency behind the impressive multi-screen ‘Fanbase‘ application, which was developed for Atlantic Records. The team used Adobe AIR and the Flash Lite Distributable player to bring the application to consumers, accessible as both a desktop application and mobile service.

David Brown from AgencyNet has kindly agreed to present an online session in which he will uncover the key factors to consider when developing and deploying content to multiple devices with Adobe’s distributable player solution. Topics include Multilingual content, multiple input types, and consistent user experiences across screens.

The presentation is TODAY (Thursday, 30th April) at 11am PST, which is 2pm EST, 7pm UK and 8pm CET.

To join the session just register here.

There is a three part video interview with Shantanu Narayen, Adobe’s CEO, up on FT.com today as part of their “View from the Top” series, in which they talk to CEOs about news and trends within their respective industry.

In Part 2 of the interview, the conversation is focused on the adoption of Flash on mobile phones and the competition between Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, as well as Adobe’s strategy for getting new technology adopted as a standard and cloud computing. There is some interesting discussion about Adobe’s relationship with Apple and Google.

You can watch that video here, from which you’ll also find links to the other parts of the interview.

There is also an article in today’s FT and available online which summaries some of the discussion points.

Even though Flash has evolved considerably since the days of just creating animations and interactive content, I often hear that developers have to “sell” the Flash Platform to their clients, especially in corporate environments where the project represents the customer’s first exposure to Flex or AIR.

To help with positioning of the Flash Platform and the justification for investing in rich Internet applications, you might be interested in some new resources that Adobe has put together.

Available in a PDF package (a single PDF file that has built-in navigation and access to multiple resources) are the following:

- A report from InfoTech on “Rich Internet Applications: What’s the Business Case?”
- A report from Gartner that evaluates AJAX and RIA technologies
- An Adobe white paper on the business benefits of rich Internet applications for enterprises
- A video and case study highlighting the success NASDAQ have had with their Market Replay AIR application

Finally, there is an Excel spreadsheet, which can be used to calculate the potential return on investment (ROI) from deploying a rich Internet application either in an employee-facing or customer-facing scenario.

You can point customers at the Flash for Business site where they can register to receive more information and a copy of the materials, or you can just download and email them the PDF package (3.7Mb), which contains all the resources.

Let me know if you have any feedback on these and whether they prove to be useful for sharing with customers.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been personally inundated with hundreds of requests for free Flex Builder licenses from developers who have found themselves unemployed due to the current economic climate – whilst no one wants to be in that situation, I’m glad that we’ve been able to do something, albeit small, to help people who have been affected and who want to learn Flex.

We’re now in a position to make this a more formal offering and have updated our Free RIA tools website, which already offers Flex Builder Professional for use by students and teachers, to facilitate the provision of licenses to developers who find themselves unemployed.

If you are a developer who is currently unemployed, you can apply for your free Flex Builder Professional license here. In addition to learning resources from Adobe, you will also receive a 60-day subscription to a collection of books on Flex 3 and RIA development on Safari Books Online.

If you are a student, teacher or are otherwise employed by an education institution you can apply for your free Flex Builder Professional license here. There is also a set of RIA teaching resources available that you might be interested in.

One of the things I like most about my job is that one minute you can be talking about SAP and the next Facebook!

The diversity in the types of experiences that can be delivered on the Flash Platform and the developer communities that are embracing Flash continues with the announcement this week that Adobe and Facebook have partnered to release an official ActionScript client library for the Facebook platform; meanwhile the SAP Community Network site has just added a new section which provides resources for SAP developers interested in embedding Rich Islands into Web Dynpro applications.

If you’re interested in adding rich user interface elements to your SAP applications then the following resources should be of interest:

• Adobe Developer Connection site
• SAP Community Network – Adobe Flash in SAP
• Quick start: Embedding an Adobe Rich Island into a Web Dynpro application
• Free book offer for SAP developers

Meanwhile, if you’d like to develop games and social applications for Facebook, or integrate Facebook features into your existing Flash or AIR application then check out the following:

• Adobe Developer Connection site
• ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook (on Google Code)
• Creating your first Facebook application with Flex
• Facebook Developers Wiki