Flash is one of the great Internet technology stories. It began in 1995 at a small tech startup called FutureSplash, which developed a remarkably efficient solution for delivering rich animation over narrowband Internet connections. Macromedia acquired FutureSplash in 1997 and established Flash as the standard for creative and dynamic interactive web content.

Flash quickly became synonymous with creating compelling experiences that attract and retain customers on the web. Its immersive content, featuring motion graphics and responsive interfaces, brought the web to life in a way that HTML could not. As the Flash player and authoring tool grew in popularity and distribution, a platform has emerged, taking advantage of the core client technology in the Flash Player.

Today, the Flash Platform delivers the most effective experiences for rich content, applications, and communications across browsers, operating systems, and devices. It provides the foundation for complete solutions, such as the Macromedia Breeze web communications application. The Flash Platform fits into existing enterprise infrastructures and is complementary to server side technologies like J2EE and .NET. The Flash Player file format (SWF) specification is openly published, and over 100 ISVs have developed software to work with the platform.

The Flash Platform consists of a ubiquitous runtime environment, robust tools to create content and applications for the runtime, experience servers for deploying Rich Internet Applications and content to the runtime, and a set of advanced programming models, application frameworks, languages, smart components, and guidelines. Both designers and traditional application developers can create content and applications for the Flash Platform using a variety of tools and services from Macromedia and other firms.

Macromedia Flash has brought motion and responsiveness to an otherwise flat browser world. With the release of the Macromedia Flash 8 authoring tool and client, Macromedia Flash continues to bring innovation and creativity to digital devices worldwide.

Introducing the Flash 8 Product Line
Flash is the industry standard for creating and delivering effective rich interactive content across desktops and devices. This reviewer's guide covers the recent advancements in the Flash 8 product line for:

• Flash Player 8
• Flash Professional 8 (including the new Flash 8 Video Encoder)
• Flash Basic 8

Flash enables creative professionals to integrate animation, video, text, audio, and graphics into engaging user experiences that span a wide variety of digital devices, from desktops to mobile phones. Flash is used to power great experiences for interactive marketing and presentations, rich media advertising, e-learning, entertainment, business applications, interactive video experiences, and more. Used by over 1.5 million creative professionals worldwide and with an audience of over 560 million users across the web, Flash is the world's most pervasive software platform. With advanced support for Internet standards such as XML, web services, ECMAScript, and web accessibility, Flash fully leverages existing technologies and infrastructure.

As the power and flexibility of the Flash platform has increased, so has the product line. Today, Flash is used by a wide array of creative individuals, from occasional users who find Flash Basic 8 perfect for web graphics and animation, to the professional designer or developer who uses Flash Professional 8 for its creative tools, authoring power, flexibility, and rich video capabilities. Both editions of Flash provide full support for the Internet's most widely distributed rich client run-time, Flash Player 8. Flash Player 8, the most significant release of the Flash Player since its introduction, will provide unparalleled creative options for web professionals. Removing awkward download pop-ups, the new Flash Player 8 has a seamless and efficient auto-update feature that manages the Player download process "invisibly," guaranteeing very fast rapid adoption of the client. This enables Flash 8 developers to immediately take advantage of stunning performance improvements and visual expressiveness never before seen on the web

Flash Professional 8
Flash 8 Professional is the most significant release since the introduction of Flash - the industry's most advanced authoring environment for creating interactive websites, engaging digital experiences, and high-impact mobile content. Consisting of all the features in Flash Basic 8, Flash Professional 8 provides advanced Flash developers everything they need to build the most compelling digital content. Whether the design is for high-quality motion graphics and animations, or developing complex interactive applications, Flash Professional 8 provides a rich set of tools and workflows completely optimized for the professional Flash user.

• Interactive content designers can express creativity in incredible new ways with breakthrough motion graphics capabilities, powerful run-time effects, and advanced animation tools for exploring creative ideas with pixel-perfect control and precision.
• Video professionals can easily design, encode, and deploy customized interactive video using the new high-quality Flash Video features.
• Professional Flash users can create great-looking content with minimal file size and superior quality using the new text rendering engine, video codec, and extensive performance optimization features.
• Mobile content developers can use Flash Professional 8 to design, build, and test content using the advanced authoring environment and interactive mobile emulator for deploying content to mobile phones.

Flash Basic 8
Flash Basic 8 is a subset of Flash Professional 8 and includes all the core functionality needed to design simple motion graphics and interactivity for delivery to the Flash Player. It is the affordable authoring environment designed for the aspiring professional.

For developing more advanced, rich interactive content, interactive video experiences, or mobile content, Flash Professional 8 is the necessary tool.

With Flash Basic 8:

• Add life to content. Enjoy precise control over designs by combining animation capabilities with powerful vector and bitmap tools.
• Share creativity with everyone. Reach a worldwide audience consistently by leveraging the Flash Player, the most widely distributed run-time client.
• Engage the audience. Build interactive content that pulls the audience in. Create even richer content that evokes reaction using ActionScript, a powerful and advanced Flash scripting language.

Flash Player 8
Flash Player is the highly expressive, ubiquitous runtime environment for interactive content and applications that look and run identically on all major platforms and web browsers. Integrate a broad array of media types with advanced interactivity and compositing for seamless experiences, and leverage ActionScript code to build sophisticated data-driven applications. Flash Player 8 offers unprecedented performance in a light-weight secure runtime, featuring a spotless security track record over nine years and eight major versions. Installed on over 500 million desktops, the Flash Player is the most ubiquitous runtime on the web today.