Today Qualcomm and Adobe announced that the BREW Mobile Platform will be integrated with Adobe Flash technology and new platform features. You can read the full press release here. This is fantastic news for both BREW and Flash developers as it further reinforces the point that Flash is becoming a preferred technology for OEMs, operators and developers for creating rich and exciting mobile experiences.

BREW Mobile Platform
The BREW Mobile Platform is Qualcomm’s next generation BREW client technology that integrates Adobe Flash and is an upgrade from the current BREW 4 environment that BREW developers use today. When it’s available in fall of this year, BREW and Flash developers will be able to create visually creative mobile applications, user interfaces and web content for mass market devices running the BREW Mobile Platform. For Flash developers this means that there will be another mobile platform that they can target their mobile applications for. Today there’s Nokia Symbian S60, Nokia Series 40, Sony Ericsson and soon Windows Mobile.

How is this different than the current Flash Lite extension for BREW?
So you may be wondering how is this announcement different than what’s already available in market today – Flash Lite 2.1 for BREW extension. The current extension is only available for BREW handsets on the Verizon Wireless network that we’ve certified and have passed NSTL certification. Today we have 13 devices certified and over the next 2-3 months we’ll have 5 more. This takes time and doesn’t address operators other than Verizon Wireless who may want to support Flash based BREW applications.

The differences between the Flash Lite extension model and the BREW Mobile Platform are:

• Adobe Flash technology will be directly integrated into the platform, meaning no per/device per/carrier certification will be required

• BREW developers will be able to use existing native BREW API interfaces directly with Flash via ActionScript – so Flash can become the presentation layer

• The BREW Mobile Platform will be shipping on all mass market BREW handsets worldwide – for all BREW carriers

BREW APIs via ActionScript
With the BREW Mobile Platform it will be possible for a BREW developer to pass information to the Flash client using ActionScript. We’re currently working with Qualcomm to define what these APIs will be but expect to be able to support most if not all of them. Translation – for example you’ll be able to create a UI or application that uses BREW APIs to retrieve the call log and use Flash to render and present that information. This level of device integration and API access is something we’ve been hearing from BREW developers for some time and with the BREW Mobile Platform it will become a reality.

Developer tools and workflow
Today we have a plug-in for Flash CS3 which allows a Flash developer to export native BREW files (.MOD and .MIF) for testing in the BREW emulator and eventually on a BREW device. This is used for the Flash Lite for BREW extension. For the BREW Mobile Platform Qualcomm and Adobe will be working closely to improve the developer workflow between Adobe’s CS3 tools (Flash CS3, Device Central CS3, CS3 creative tools) with tools available from Qualcomm including the BREW emulator.

Open Screen Project
This announcement of the BREW Mobile Platform demonstrates rapid progress in support of the recently announced Open Screen Project to enable a consistent runtime environment that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and devices.

Handset availability
Even though we’ve jointly made this announcement today, more concrete details about the BREW Mobile Platform won’t be available until the fall of this year – when the BREW Mobile Platform becomes available for CDMA and UMTS chipsets. Actual device shipments depend on OEM schedules and we expect initial device shipments in the mid-2009 timeframe.

Next steps
For more information you can refer to the BREW developer site and soon we will be posting additional information on the Adobe Flash for BREW developer site. Of course if you have any follow-up questions you can post them here and I’ll do my best to answer them.