Adobe Flash porting to Android?
We're told that a "global, tier-one carrier" is planning to port Flash to the Android platform. But the whos, hows, whats, and whens are currently cloudy.
Correction at 8:05 a.m. PDT to reflect updated information from Bsquare that says it's porting Flash technology, not Adobe's player itself, to Android, and that it's ported Flash to 100 embedded devices in general, not 100 Android devices.
Adobe wowed a crowd last November when it demoed a full-fledged version of Flash 10 on T-Mobile's Google Android phone, the G1. We've been waiting expectantly since then to see Flash 10 mobile materialize for Android.
On Wednesday, embedded devices company Bsquare hinted there could be some movement in that direction, though not necessarily from Adobe itself. Instead, the company will partner with "a global, tier-one carrier" to port Adobe's Flash technology to Android's operating system to the carrier's mystery device. Bsquare notes that it has already ported similar technology to roughly 100 devices. While Bsquare isn't quite ready to spill the beans on which international carrier has commissioned its services, we're speculating that it could be T-Mobile, which already won Google's contract to exclusively supply the Android G1 phone in the U.S.
In addition to keeping the carrier name in the dark, it's also unclear what the product's limitations will be, how the ported Flash technology compares to or competes with Adobe's forthcoming offering, and when the finished product will begin to benefit the fine Android owners out there.