Microsoft and Adobe are "working closely" on the effort, according to Mike Chambers, product manager for developer relations for the Flash Platform at Adobe. "Adobe and Microsoft are working together to bring Flash Player 10.1 to Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phone 7 Series," Chambers said in a Tuesday blog post.

Chambers didn't say anything about Flash being used for native application development in Windows Phone 7, and that's because Microsoft plans to use Silverlight for this purpose. This will enable Microsoft to get developers working on Windows Phone 7 apps using familiar tools, and supporting Flash in IE Mobile will maintain a bridge to other types of content and allow Microsoft to talk about its commitment to interoperability.

Apple, of course, doesn't support Flash on the iPhone or the iPad, CEO Steve Jobs has been taking shots at Flash in recent months, reportedly deriding it as a "CPU hog" that's full of security holes. But Microsoft has set beefy minimum hardware specifications for Windows Phone 7 OEMs, which suggests that Flash may be able to run smoothly on these devices, Meeker said.

Microsoft wants consumers to get excited about Windows Phone 7 devices, and adding more functionality would help. But Windows Mobile is in the midst of a freefall, as its share of the smartphone market fell from 19.7 percent in October to 15.7 percent in January, while Android grew from 2.8 percent to 7.1 percent during the period, according to comScore figures released Wednesday.

Microsoft has a lot of ground to make up, but by empowering developers and removing roadblocks to users that want to consume Flash content on mobile devices, Microsoft is making a shrewd move that could help it reach its goal of luring consumers away from the popular smartphone platforms du jour.

The GlobalMagic team is currently waging a campaign through April 24th to raise money for the national Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to fund research to find a much needed cure for blood cancers. Currently 900,000 people are affected with blood cancers and every 10 minutes one of those people loses the battle.

Would you please help us spread the word through your network of friends and family members? We feel that the viral opportunities that exist today through online vehicles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. can quickly raise awareness and help make this campaign a big fundraising success.

Our president is writing a daily blog on the progress of the campaign, and our firm has developed a free iPhone app that enables people to donate to LLS and honor their loved ones by writing a special dedication and lighting a virtual candle for them.

Naturally anything you can do to help will be greatly appreciated: talking up the campaign, downloading the free iPhone app and sharing it with others, and if you are so moved, making a small donation - every dollar collected counts.

Thank you very much.


Web Links:
Campaign blog: http://lighttheapp.blogspot.com
iPhone app site with link: http://www.lighttheapp.org
Make a donation: http://in.llsevent.org/PAM
iTunes (the iPhone app): http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/light-the-app/id355561319?mt=8
IndyStar article: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20102280305 - click 'Next Page'

"Facebook believes 2010 will be a watershed year for mobile - The service is now actively used by more than 400 million people - They want to make Facebook even more ubiquitous and reach billions of users - 100 million users (25% of total number of users) actively uses Facebook's mobile products at least once a month - 200 million people have interacted with Facebook on mobile at least once- Over the next 5 to 10 years, Facebook aims to invest heavily in expanding mobile experiences for their users; they expect a lot more growth in this area - Facebook now works together with some 200 mobile operators and they are striving to convince more about the added value of such partnerships."

Robin Wauters
TechCrunch.com