Funny how the perception of mobile can change almost overnight. In a flurry of announcements from Adobe in the lead up to the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the worlds of RIA and mobile were placed on a collision course.

I've been working with Flash Lite nearly full-time for over 4 years now. While many of my Flash colleagues dived into Flex and AIR, I certainly kept up with those technologies but focused my development and business energies into Flash Lite. Many were wondering if the RIA world that Flash had grown up into would ever find an avenue onto the indisputable global growth platform of mobile, myself included. If I had a dollar for every time I heard, "Flash Lite is just isn't a player worth developing for", or, "It's such a backward step from where I am now with AIR/Flex/AS3", I would be writing this post from my holiday house on the beach.

This week Adobe made a series of announcements around mobile that I think should finally silence at least some of those criticisms. I say "at least some" because for many RIA developers, the mobile world still looks like a fragmented mish-mash of devices and incompatibilities - hardly the "single application deploys seamlessly to PC/Mac/Linux" story. And while that's true, I believe those same developers should look a little bit further into the mobile platform now that some of the coding barriers are coming down.

I want to take a moment to look at the main Adobe mobile announcements that relate to RIA and give my opinion on what they mean for the future. This is not going to be a "Make Money with Flash Lite" kind of post, which has too often been written to the ultimate detriment of the mobile Flash platform (because it just hasn't been that simple). This will hopefully just be a way to enlighten some non-mobile RIA developers on what the future may hold, coming from someone who has been living mobile for a long time now. Anyway, on with the post ...

Flash Mobile Numbers
Strategy Analytics confirmed that by the end of Q1 2009, 1 billion devices will have shipped with Flash Lite, which is about 1 year ahead of Adobe's original plan. The next couple of years will see a further 1.5 billion devices in the market, and by my own reckoning that's about 2-3 times faster than the first billion.

Also in 2008, nearly 40% of all new mobile phones and devices shipped with Flash Lite.

I've mentioned in other articles previously that 1 billion devices sounds like a lot - and it is - but it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to establishing a standard runty in an ecosystem where there are billions of devices shipped and sold each year. The more impressive stat for me out of this is the "40% of all new devices in 2008 had Flash Lite". As you would know, numbers can be tricky when used in marketing. For example, we don't know what percentage of this "40%" were devices with Flash Lite as the standalone player (for running apps), or in the browser, or as wallpaper and screensaver support. But overall, my take away from this is that Flash Lite adoption from the manufacturers is gathering momentum, and that the J-curve of Flash Lite penetration is certainly reaching the faster and steeper end from the slow start we've had.

My tip: Expect to see the number of devices working with either web-based or standalone applications start to overtake the lower-end devices in the next 18 months. View the full press release here.

Flash Player 10 for Smartphones
Flash Player 10 will be introduced in the browser and runtime on smartphone devices including Windows Mobile, Nokia / Symbian S60, Android and Palm (Pre), with devices expected in the market by 2010.

This was of course talked about at Adobe MAX in San Francisco last year, so for many in the RIA world it's not something especially new. What we do have now though is a closer time frame and a better idea of what devices will be running the new player. While details are still a little sketchy, I believe that Flash Player 10 / AIR on mobile devices will be the jumping point for many RIA developers who are looking to go mobile. Of course mobile is still mobile - RIA developers will still need to contend with multiple devices in a fragmented world, but taking applications from the browser, to the desktop and to the mobile device will be not only possible, but relatively painless.

WinMo and S60 phones have had Flash support for years. Android got up at MAX last year and so we knew about them to. The device that got most people talking out of all of this was the Palm Pre. Palm has enjoyed a bit of a resurgence in consumer confidence since they announced the Pre, and it's been interesting to see the commentary around the device's Flash support as well. From the line up of smartphones there's now only RIM and Apple missing.

Flash Lite 3.1 Distributable Player
Using the new Adobe Mobile Packager (available now for public beta from Adobe Labs), developers can now create SIS (Symbian) and CAB (WinMo) installer packagers for their Flash Lite content, and enable consumers of that content to be able to download the new Flash Lite 3.1 player OTA (over the air).

What does that look like, and why do we care? Well firstly, here's what the process looks like:

• Create and test Flash Lite content using Flash CS4 and Device Central CS4


• With Adobe Mobile Packager, create an installer package (SIS or CAB) with your content, including custom icons, readme.txt, etc. You can tell the package what version of Flash Lite is required for your content to run.


• The package will also contain (automatically) the Adobe Version Checker application. When someone installs your content package, the Version Checker is also installed. When the application is run, the Version Checker first checks your target player, and what players exist on the device. If needed, it will then download Flash Lite 3.1 over the air to the device and then relaunch the application

Flash Lite developers have long suffered with the inability to distribute the Flash Lite player with their content. And even though this solution currently only targets S60 and WinMo, it's a massive step in the right direction. The idea is to extend the number of platforms this will package for in the future, as well as be able to target devices that previously have not shipped with any version of Flash pre-installed (but are of course on a supported OS). This also means that developers can actually target a player version and install the latest one if required. This is much more complicated on mobile than it is on the web, so to get this "hey you need the latest version of Flash Lite" working on a device is no small feat.

Taking this further, Adobe are also now partnering with several content aggregators who are enabling their content portals to distribute content created with the Distributable player, and so are enabling simpler sales channels for developers to use when trying to monetize their content. This is why right now, the OTA delivery of the Flash Lite 3.1 player is only available over networks in the US, UK, India, Spain and Italy - this is where these aggregators have their businesses running with the local operators. As I said at the beginning, this is not a "How to Make Money With Flash Lite" post, so I will reserve comment on this aspect of the solution until a little later.

How do you get developers to build something - you pay them!
The last couple of announcements that I'll write about here are to do with the various financial incentives that were released for developers.

Firstly there is the Flash Lite Developer Challenge. This is a straight out developer competition - you make something cool in a certain category and you can win some prize money. All up there's US$100k to be won across the categories, which are really focused on applications. You can also win distribution with some of the aggregators that are partnering with Adobe.

Secondly, there's the Open Screen Project Fund that was announced in conjunction with Nokia.

it's a $10 million market development fund that will provide grants to developers in order to accelerate the creation of apps, content and services that leverage the Adobe Flash Platform and run across mobile, desktop and consumer electronics devices (RIA). Proposals will be reviewed by an Open Screen Project Fund steering committee, who are looking for applications that work across devices, and showcase the key features of Flash Lite, Flash Player and AIR..

So where to now?
While Flash Player 10 won't be seen on a device in the market until 2010, it's time to start really evaluating your mobile strategy. RIA is coming to devices, there's no question. I think from what we have seen announced, particularly with the handset vendors now on board, the potential workflow from web to desktop to mobile will be one that will present Flash developers a distinct advantage. For some that may still seem too far away (and may be questioning why so long!) but I think the path has been set and it's a good time to start taking your first steps down it.

I won't hijack my own post with comments on iPhone and Flash, but I wouldn't be discounting the significance of these recent announcements just because there wasn't one from Apple.

Please post any comments or questions and I'll answer them as honestly as I can, and of course from the perspective of someone who has already sold themselves on the mobile dream :)

Read more from Dale Rankine.