Adobe’s recent announcement that Microsoft has licensed Flash Lite 3 should shift the mobile news conversation away from iPhone = no flash to Windows Mobile = Flash Lite 3. Obviously having Microsoft license Flash Lite 3 for Windows Mobile is a big deal, and is especially important for the North American market.

According to a Symbian Market Round-up November 2007 Windows Mobile represented about ~20 - 25% (going by visual estimate of a graph) of the North American smart phone market. Once these new Windows Mobile Flash Lite phones make their way into the market, then NA Flash Lite market penetration will also grow significantly.

This report demonstrates that there is no one clear leader in the NA market Smart phone market. Adobe will need to continue to make licensing deals with other platforms like RIM and Palm to ensure that Flash Lite has an important market share in the NA market. However, the Microsoft license should be a significant motivator for these other platforms license Flash Lite 3 as well.

Here is a list of current WM6 PPC and Smartphones available in the NA market. As you can see from the list, this also broadends the Flash Lite market penetration to all of the major networks in North America, because each of the networks carries at least one windows mobile device. So this licensing deal adds both breadth and depth.

Even though the implementation is browser only, I think we will see 3rd party tools like Janus enable full screen projector/standalone capabilities from the Flash Lite 3 “plug-in”. I would assume this is an ActiveX control and can be instantiated within other applications, in a similar manner as developers have used PPC Flash ActiveX control over the years. So I expect that we will have both browser and a “standalone” like capability through Windows Mobile Flash Lite 3.

Of course we will have to wait and see, but I am hopeful that this will bring new opportunities to Flash developers who are concerned about reaching both PC and mobile devices, and those developers who are focusing mobile specific solutions.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 11:23 am and is filed under Windows Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.