Adobe Advances Web 2.0 in Education

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced that it is offering Adobe® Flex™ Builder™ 2 software at no cost to students and faculty at educational institutions worldwide. The Flex Builder 2 integrated development environment (IDE) is part of a powerful toolset for designing and developing rich Internet applications (RIAs), an essential part of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 technologies have spurred the development of RIAs that enable data sharing, collaboration, user participation, social networking, and more. Flex is the industry’s most advanced framework for building cross-operating system RIAs for the Web. By offering Flex Builder 2 at no cost, educational institutions will be able to improve students’ and researchers’ knowledge of RIA development. With Flex 3, currently in public beta, students will be able to extend their RIAs to the desktop using Adobe® AIR™.

“By making it easier for educational institutions to adopt Flex 2, we are ensuring that students and researchers are better equipped to harness the power of Web 2.0 and RIAs,” said Peter Isaacson, vice president of education marketing at Adobe. “It is clear that RIAs are the future of Web development, and a strong skill set in RIA development will serve students well in their careers.”

“As someone who teaches a Flex course, I applaud Adobe for helping to provide the free software that will help professors better prepare our students for the future,” said Yakov Fain, adjunct professor at New York University. “People with Adobe Flex skills are already in big demand in the industry, and this smart move will help to substantially increase the number of Flex-enabled college graduates. We are pleased to be among the first universities to offer this kind of coursework to our students.”

Flex applications can be commercially created and deployed today with the free Flex 2 SDK, which includes the Flex compiler and the ActionScript™ 3.0 libraries. Together, these elements provide the modern, standards-based language and programming model used by leading businesses to create RIAs deployed on the ubiquitous Adobe Flash® Player. Beginning with the release of Flex 3 in early 2008, the Flex SDK will be made available as open source, enabling developers to extend and contribute to the source code for the Flex compiler, components and application framework.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Flex 2 will be available to qualified education end-users for free download on Adobe.com in early November.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information - anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com .