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BSQUARE becomes mobile Flash distributor
January 03, 2008 | By Edward J. Rutkowski.

BSQUARE - the company that developed among others SDIO technology for Windows Mobile devices and that is very experienced in Windows CE and Windows Mobile areas - has just signed agreement that makes it a distributor of Flash Lite - a mobile version of Flash technology used for development of platform-independent scalable (i.e. also vector based, not just bitmap based) multimedia applications.

While several competitors of Windows Mobile are embedding flash in their phones, the support for Flash in Windows Mobile is patchy or not available: Microsoft itself is not including it and only few manufacturers and operators put it in their Windows Mobile phones... so this announcement from BSQUARE may have positive impact on Flash situation in Windows Mobile phones!!! (particularly because Microsoft still is treating Windows Mobile as second class citizen in the area of Microsoft's Silverlight technology - competitor to Flash - where Linux and Mac OS X are supported by Microsoft but not Windows Mobile)

More information from BSQUARE follows.

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BSQUARE Acquires Adobe Flash Technology Consulting and Distribution Business from NEC Corporation of America

BSQUARE to Deliver Adobe Flash Lite Software to OEMs Worldwide

BSQUARE Corporation announced that it has acquired NEC Corporation of America’s Adobe Flash Technology Consulting and Distribution business for an undisclosed sum. As a result of the transaction, BSQUARE is now a worldwide authorized distributor of Adobe Flash Lite software, which supports Adobe Flash Player functionality for mobile and embedded devices. A license is required for any mobile or embedded device that utilizes Flash Lite software. BSQUARE will license Flash Lite to OEMs building mobile and embedded devices and will also deliver Flash Lite porting, performance-optimization, testing and verification services. In addition, BSQUARE plans to feature Flash Lite on its DevKit hardware development platforms.

Flash Lite enables OEMs and operators to differentiate their devices with a custom user interface. It also gives end users the ability to access compelling web content such as YouTube videos. Adobe reports that more than 300 million Flash-enabled devices have shipped to date and predicts that over one billion Flash-enabled devices will be available by 2010. The BSQUARE acquisition includes distribution rights for Adobe Flash ports for popular hardware platforms from Broadcom, Freescale, IBM, Intel, Marvell, NEC, NXP, RMI, and Texas Instruments. BSQUARE will also acquire NEC’s installed Flash Lite customer base and NEC’s Flash Lite product team.

“This acquisition broadens our product and service offerings in an area of particular interest to OEMs right now, given the increasing popularity of web content such as YouTube on mobile devices. Further, OEMs desire to build compelling user interfaces on devices utilizing Flash authoring tools,” said Brian Crowley, president and CEO, BSQUARE. “Our engineering services team will performance-optimize Adobe Flash Lite for OEMs building mobile phones, set-top boxes, digital signs and other customer-facing devices. In addition, OEMs within the installed base of Flash customers will benefit from BSQUARE’s experience and expertise as a distributor of Microsoft Windows embedded licenses. We expect the acquisition to be accretive in fiscal 2008.”

“We anticipate solid growth in embedded sales as OEMs continue to offer more compelling user interfaces and end users demand the ability to view engaging Flash-enabled content,” said Mike Bergeron, Vice President of Business Development at Adobe. “We are pleased to work with BSQUARE, a highly-regarded embedded device technology expert and distributor, to accelerate the adoption of Adobe Flash Lite in mobile and embedded devices.”

[via msmobiles.com]