Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced the availability of Adobe® Flash® Player 9 (formerly Flash Player 8.5), the next-generation Flash Player client runtime. Flash Player provides a more secure, lightweight, robust runtime environment for rich media and enterprise-ready rich Internet applications. Flash Player 9 achieves up to 10 times faster performance through ActionScript 3.0 and a new ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM), which features a Just In Time (JIT) compiler that translates ActionScript bytecode to native machine code for maximum execution speed. Installed on over 600 million Internet-connected PCs and mobile devices worldwide, Flash Player provides consistent and predictable application runtime capabilities across browsers, desktops and other devices. Flash Player and Adobe Reader® provide client runtime capabilities for the Adobe Engagement Platform, which delivers a programming model, tools, components, and services that enable designers and developers to create and deliver rich, vibrant, branded content and applications to mass audiences in virtually every medium. Flash Player 9 provides new application runtime capabilities for Adobe Flex™ 2, also announced today (see separate release). The Flex 2 product line provides developers with a comprehensive, integrated set of tools and technology for fast, end-to-end development of rich and innovative web applications. "Flash Player 9 enables developers to deliver next generation Web applications with its dramatically increased performance and leading edge scripting," said Kevin Lynch, senior vice president and chief software architect at Adobe Systems. "We look forward to seeing how the community will leverage the newest Flash Player in their innovative work." Developers can now deliver powerful and dynamic multimedia content and applications via ActionScript 3.0 and a new highly optimized ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM). ActionScript 3.0 is a powerful, object-oriented ECMAScript-compliant programming language that provides a familiar syntax and compelling new language features such as ECMAScript for XML (E4X), regular expressions, and a standardized DOM event model. Adobe is an active participant in the Ecma International Programming Language technical committee (TC39-TG1) developing the ECMAScript Edition 4 (ES4) standard. ECMAScript is a foundational standard used by languages such as Adobe ActionScript, Netscape JavaScript and Microsoft JScript. "Creating engaging, interactive, and expressive applications is no easy feat, but Adobe Flash Player 9 and Flex 2 make the process seamless, from development to delivery," said Darron Schall, developer of the FC64 Commodore C64 Emulator. "The vastly optimized ActionScript 3.0 application program interfaces (APIs) in Flash Player 9 enabled me to provide an open-source real-time emulator for the Commodore 64 to the community." The AVM was built from the ground up to offer breakthrough performance and features, including more efficient memory utilization, faster application start-times, improved debugging and full runtime error reporting. Developers can leverage existing skills to quickly and easily build complex rich Internet applications. Instant adoption of Flash Player 9 will continue to be facilitated via Flash Player Express Install and auto-update notification for current Flash Player users. According to NPD Group Research, new versions of Flash Player reach 80 percent of Internet-connected desktops in approximately 12 months. For more information about Flash Player adoption rates, please visit . "Adobe’s Flash Player is adopted so quickly and broadly that unlike other client runtimes, we have a lot of confidence that new innovations taking advantage of Flash Player 9 will reach all our constituents in very short order," said Michael Labriola, founding partner at Digital Primates. Pricing and Availability Adobe Flash Player 9 is available immediately as a free download at . Flash Player 9 is available in both English and localized versions and is offered for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. To learn more about Adobe Flash Player 9, please visit . For system requirements, please visit / . About Adobe Systems Incorporated Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information - anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit . ### © 2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe and the Adobe logo, Flash, Flex and Reader are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.