One might consider it the lesser known cousin of more high-profile frameworks like .NET and Java, but the Flash model is as ubiquituous, if not more so, than the rest of the frameworks for building rich Internet applications. Almost every browser supports the Flash player plug-in, and while most of us would associate Flash with the exasperating pop-ups and juvenilia that festoon the Web, it is a viable platform for building serious applications.
Unfortunately, due to the wide usage of Flash for the aforementioned web advertisements, many people block Flash content through plugins like FlashBlock for the Firefox browser. There are also accessibility and privacy concerns, as well as the lack of a viable open licensing program, at least as perceived in some quarters. Internet Explorer users will also likely face issues with having to manually activate the Flash controls due to a patch implemented by Microsoft to address patent issues with embedded ActiveX controls. Adobe is doing well, though, with a market cap of over $16 billion, despite depressed stock prices, and, as CEO Bruce Chizen said recently in a New York Times interview, "This delivery of information across all platforms and media types is what is driving our business."
Adobe recently released Adobe Flex 2, an IDE built on the Eclipse framework for building Flash applications. It requires the new Flash 9 runtime, and is derived from the earlier Macromedia product, Flex, that Adobe gained rights to, along with Flash, when they acquired Macromedia in December, 2005. Flex provides the ability to build workflow-based applications, rather than merely animation-heavy thingumabobs. It actually compiles MXML and ActionScript on the fly into binary Flash applications.
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