RIM now using Adobe Flash as a weapon against Apple

Today RIM & Adobe teamed up at AdobeMAX to announce their commitment to developers with an irresistible offer – a free Playbook (RIM’s upcoming tablet device) to any developer who creates an approved app in Adobe AIR. Adobe AIR is essentially a local runtime to allow Flash/Actionscript to run as an application.

In addition to the announcement, RIM also reaffirmed their commitment to Adobe’s Flash technology on their mobile devices by demoing the new Playbook running full Flash 10.1. RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis was on hand himself to provide the demonstration, which was very impressive to say the least. In addition to the applause it quickly drew from the audience, it also further undermined the credibility of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ recent statements claiming mobile devices could not run Flash properly.

View the demo live: http://crackberry.com/blackberry-playbook-live-demo

This is the latest volley RIM has fired back at Apple in what is becoming an increasingly vicious battle over the smartphone and tablet market. Last week RIM’s other Co-CEO Jim Balsillie took direct aim at Steve Jobs’ recent and unusual comments about device shipments, clarifying a number of misleading statements by Jobs and again reaffirming RIM’s commitment to Flash.

The Apple camp has come under increasingly intense fire lately as the likes of RIM, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Motorola, every major motion picture company, and countless others have lined up to announce their complete support for Adobe’s powerful web application language. A support and developer association has also been formed called http://www.openscreenproject.org/ .

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, based on Google’s Android mobile operating system, will be the first tablet to hit the market with full Flash support.

Writers note: at Pixelcarve we have demoed Samsung’s new tablet with our Flash websites and they work terrifically!