Adobe Releases Flash Player 9 for Linux

Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) Systems on Wednesday released Flash Player 9 for Linux, the next-generation client runtime for engaging with Flash content and applications on Linux open source operating systems.

Additionally, Linux developers can create, test and deploy rich Internet applications on the Linux platform using the free Adobe Flex 2 Software Developers Kit, Adobe Flash Player 9 and the free Flex Data Services 2 Express.

All Access

"With the proliferation of video on the Web, Adobe Flash Player is quickly becoming the de facto industry standard for delivering engaging interactive content and applications," said Emmy Huang, senior product manager at Adobe.

"Now the Linux community has full access to the high volume of Flash content and applications available on the Internet today, bringing Linux developers and users to the forefront of the Web 2.0 experience," Huang added.

Version 9 of the Flash Player runs scripts up to ten times faster than previous versions, and also allows programmers to write portable applications exploiting more of the capabilities of Adobe's Flex 2 development platform, the company said.

It will also allow site developers using Linux to access more of the potential of Adobe's rich Internet application development environment.

Business Apps

The Flex platform includes server components for extracting data from business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and, on the client side, integrates with the more recent versions of the Flash player.

Flash Player 9 for Linux is available immediately as a free download from www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayerlinux. The standalone and debug versions of Adobe Flash Player for developers are available from www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html.

Adobe Flash Player 9 for Linux will also be included in Linux operating systems distributed by Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) and Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) later this year.