Adobe to launch flash builder 4 for enterprises

Bangalore: "Adobe flash builder 4, formerly known as Adobe flex builder is likely to be launched by the Q1 of FY 2010," says PN Anantharaman, Director of Engineering, Adobe Systems. It took eighteen months for Adobe to create this product. "While the name has changed, this is still the evolution of flex builder 3-a professional-grade, eclipse-based development tool designed to help users rapidly build rich internet applications (RIAs) and content using the open-source flex framework, but with an incredible collection of powerful new features," added Anantharaman.

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The genesis of the RIA revolution was started by Adobe technologies' like Adobe flex. Ben Forta, Director (Evangelism), Adobe Systems said, "Adobe flash builder will be highly productive, free open source framework for building and maintaining expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops and operating systems." The flash platform enables decision-support systems and multi step business applications that improve productivity and user acceptance, as well as compelling web applications, content and video that monetize customer's assets and increase brand loyalty. The adobe flash platform technologies are based on the industry leading Adobe flash player, which is available on over 98 percent of internet enabled computers worldwide.

The rebranding of flex builder is an effort to clarify the lines between the company's open source flex framework and proprietary flash RIA runtime development environment. Flash builder 4 is likely to boast three important new features. The first is improved developer productivity via an integrated development environment (IDE) that supports drag-and-drop editing and the updated flex framework. Second is support for data-centric applications by allowing for the binding of components such as charts and data grids. Third is the fact that flash builder 4 is much more conducive for handling workflows between designers and developers. Adobe's new tool is likely to let designers build user interfaces without coding and creating workflow.

While Adobe's flash and flex platforms are regarded as the leading RIA development environments, Microsoft's silverlight platform is gaining significant momentum as an alternative. "Microsoft clearly has the developer core competency and Adobe has the designer core competency and that is not going to be resolved right away. Designers will generally prefer Adobe's tools and developers are generally going to find Microsoft's tools stronger in the overall richness for developers. Both of them are growing into each other's space," said IDC analyst Al Hilwa. Adobe is also trying to develop its developer market and challenge the market of Microsoft's silverlight in coming days.

Web and RIA development is one of the few areas in the software tooling environment that is growing. Worldwide revenues for such tooling grew by 14 percent to $940 million in 2008, according to International Data (IDC) research.