Tuesday, March 13, 2007
FlexBuilder for the Macintosh Ships
by Brian Duck, Product Review Coordinator
Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the delivery of Adobe® Flex™ Builder™ 2 for Macintosh, an extension of its powerful toolset for designing and deploying a new class of rich Internet applications. The release of Flex Builder 2 for the Macintosh helps developers and designers build engaging Web applications that combine the benefits of desktop software with the reach of the Web.
I’ve been working with AJAX application framework call BackBase for the past few months, and this looks much more productive. It seemed like a worthwhile effort to let some of our FordMug members who are developers know about this development environment. Adobe is currently working on a product, codename Apollo, which will turn Flex in to a full-fledged desktop application development environment. It’s worth taking a look: labs.adobe.com
“The response to Flex Builder from the Mac developer community has been overwhelming and positive,” said Jeff Whatcott, vice president marketing and business development for Adobe’s Enterprise and Developer Business Unit.... With Flex Builder for the Mac more exciting and more engaging experiences will be in reach for greater numbers of people, regardless of their development platform.”
The Adobe 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. With the free license version of the Flex 2 SDK, developers have everything they need to build and deploy complete rich Internet applications with no software licensing costs. Flex Builder 2, a powerful Eclipse® based integrated development environment (IDE), combines powerful ActionScript and MXML editors, a visual UI designer, and integrated debugging, to help developers build applications faster.
“Many developers build engaging web applications leveraging the combination of Flex and our flagship product WebLogic,” said Bill Roth, vice president of the Workshop business unit at BEA. “The release of Flex Builder for the Macintosh helps ensure that our customers have a complete cross-platform, rich Internet application experience on top of the WebLogic Server.”
Flex Builder enables Macintosh community to quickly develop rich internet applications
“The response to Flex Builder from the Mac developer community has been overwhelming and positive,” said Jeff Whatcott, vice president marketing and business development for Adobe’s Enterprise and Developer Business Unit. “More and more, the Web is about experiences. With Flex Builder for the Mac more exciting and more engaging experiences will be in reach for greater numbers of people, regardless of their development platform.”
Pricing and Availability
Flex Builder 2 for the Macintosh and the Flex Builder 2 Eclipse® Plug-in for the Macintosh are now publicly available for trial and purchase at http://www.adobe.com/flex . The Mac OS X version of Flex is a Universal Binary that will install on Intel®- and PowerPC®-based Macintosh systems. In addition to the new Flex Builder for the Macintosh offering, Adobe is also making available updates to the Windows version of Flex Builder 2, and the Windows and Linux® version of the Flex 2 SDK and Flex Data Services 2. Customers can download these free updates from the Adobe Flex support center (http://www.adobe.com/support/flex ).
The Adobe Flex 2 SDK, which includes the Flex framework and command line compiler, is available free of charge. Adobe Flex Builder 2 is available for an estimated street price of US$499. Adobe Flex Builder 2 with Charting is available for an estimated street price of US$749. Volume discounts and custom pricing structures for ISV/OEM customers also are available.*
