Adobe advances Web 2.0 in education

An integrated development environment (IDE), Adobe Flex 2 is part of a powerful toolkit for designing and developing rich Internet applications (RIAs), and is available to qualified education end-users for download on Adobe website.

"The Web has revolutionized the way we access data and has transformed the way we interact with our networked environment. This has led to educational institutions, worldwide to academically promoting Internet-based information sharing and content creation," said Jacob Alex, Adobe Middle East's Channel Manager.

"Moreover, the regional web community is developing at a very fast pace with amateurs and professionals using software such as Adobe Flex to improve their knowledge of RIA development.
"With our Adobe Flex Builder 2 offering, we seek to help educational institutions by providing them the industry's most advanced framework for building cross-operating system RIAs for Web 2.0."

Adobe Flex 2 is an essential part of Web 2.0 technologies that have spurred the development of RIAs including enabling data sharing, collaboration, user participation and social networking. With Adobe Flex 3, currently in public beta, students will also be able to extend their RIAs to the desktop using Adobe AIR.

"By making it easier for educational institutions to adopt Adobe Flex 2, we are ensuring that students and researchers are better equipped to harness the power of Web 2.0 and RIAs," said Peter Isaacson, vice president of education marketing at Adobe. "It is clear that RIAs are the future of Web development, and a strong skill set in RIA development will serve students well in their careers."

Adobe's Flex applications can be commercially created and deployed today with the free Flex 2 software development kit (SDK), which includes the Flex compiler and the ActionScript 3.0 libraries. Together, these elements provide a modern, standards-based language and programming model used by leading businesses to create RIAs deployed on the ubiquitous Adobe Flash Player.

Beginning with the release of Flex 3 in early 2008, the Flex SDK will be made available as open source, enabling developers to extend and contribute to the source code for the Flex compiler, components and application framework.

"As someone who teaches a Flex course, I applaud Adobe for helping to provide the free software that will help professors better prepare our students for the future," said Yakov Fain, adjunct professor at New York University. "People with Adobe Flex skills are already in big demand in the industry, and this smart move will help to substantially increase the number of Flex-enabled college graduates. We are pleased to be among the first universities to offer this kind of coursework to our students."