Posted on 30-4-2002
Flash
Future?
By JOHN MARKOFF, NY Times
SAN FRANCISCO, April 26 — Macromedia Inc. , the publisher of
the popular
Flash Internet media player, plans to introduce a strategy on
Monday
intended to make the company a player in the next generation
of the
Internet being pursued by companies like I.B.M., Microsoft and
Sun
Microsystems.
Macromedia is trying to use its Flash player — which until now
has largely
been used for displaying animated content on the Web — to make
the
company's software a significant component in the emerging "Web
services"
version of the Internet. Web services are intended to move the
Internet
beyond today's relatively static, document-oriented Web by increasing
the
power and flexibility of business-oriented services, from shopping
to
information retrieval and communications.
In March, the San Francisco-based company began shipping Flash
6.0, a
software component that works with many different computer operating
systems, wireless handhelds and interactive television consoles.
The new
version has features that make it possible to transmit audio
and video as
well as the ability to serve as a user interface for applications
that run
on a centralized server computer and are linked via the Internet.
Macromedia is hoping that Internet developers will increasingly
use its Web
development software, known as Dreamweaver, and a range of related
products
to design what the company calls "rich Internet applications."
These
programs would behave less like the interactive Web pages of
today and more
like stand-alone applications. They will give users Internet
content, like
audio and video, as well as data for business transactions or
other uses.
"We think the Internet costs too much and doesn't do enough,"
said Tom
Hale, a senior vice president at Macromedia. "We're trying to
go from
browsing to doing."
One advantage of the Macromedia approach to Internet interactivity
would be
to dramatically lower the bandwidth costs of the Internet for
companies who
now send repetitive copies of Web pages to customers who are
making online
purchases.
The company plans to integrate several products into one Internet
application called Macromedia MX, to be available in June. It
will include
software authoring tools, server software and the Flash player.
The system is intended to coexist with the next generation of
server
software from Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and I.B.M., Mr. Hale
said. He
said it would also be possible to build complete applications
using
Macromedia MX without relying on other Web services applications.
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