Growing Development Community Delivers Rich, Interactive Mobile Applications with Macromedia Flash

CANNES, France -- Feb. 14, 2005 -- Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) today announced its mobile Flash developer community is expanding rapidly and developing award-winning work, as evidenced by the winners of the Macromedia Flash Content Contest at 3GSM World Congress 2005. NYC Traffic was selected as the Grand Prize Winner in addition to eight category winners, all of which demonstrate the ease of use and power of Flash applications for mobile devices.

The contest took place in conjunction with the Macromedia Mobile Developer Program, which supports wireless developers and other content professionals worldwide who are interested in mobilizing their Flash and non-Flash assets. Developers in the program have access to a broad range of services and information to help them design, develop, and market Flash applications and content for wireless mobile devices, including mobile-specific tools and content development kits, training, and support. To join the Macromedia Mobile Developer Program, please visit www.macromedia.com/mobile.

"This is just the beginning. Our developer program membership has accelerated with the recent excitement and business opportunity around mobile. We’re working with some great developers, like AIR Media, who is doing innovative work with its community gaming applications" said David Fleck, director of developer programs for Macromedia. "We’re expecting the number of program participants to grow exponentially over the next year given our recent deal with Nokia, which pools Forum Nokia’s 1.8 million registered developers with our more than one million existing Flash developers"

"Flash for mobile provides an excellent presentation layer, integrates seamlessly into our rapid development infrastructure, and is scalable across a wide range of devices" said Don Harris, CEO, AIR Media. "The capabilities of Flash enable AIR Media to extend branded mobile applications with a new user experience to carriers and handsets that are sure to capture millions of subscribers around the world"

The Flash Content Contest winners are listed below, by category. To view the winning applications, please visit http://www.macromedia.com/mobile/gallery/.

Grand Prize Winner and Best Business & Productivity Application: Justin Everett Church created NYC Traffic, an interactive Flash mobile application to view live traffic at a number of Manhattan intersections.

Most Innovative Use of Flash Lite: iShop Pro, from SmartWorlds’ Giuseppe Taibi, is a powerful mobile Flash application that lets shoppers quickly and easily compare prices, read reviews, and find product comparisons. iShop Pro also integrates with Amazon.com XML web services and is available in English, Japanese, French, and German.

Best Game: With Cryptic Capers, Indiagames’ Vishal Gondal wanted to create a visually rich experience for the user, coupled with an engaging game play. As a leading global mobile content publisher on other platforms, Indiagames recognized and used Flash as a perfect new technology to achieve quicker development, compelling graphics, and platform-independent content.

Best Interactive Content: Jochen Geiger of webstudio e.k. created VfB Soccer, a feature-rich application that keeps mobile users up to date with the latest news, scheduled matches, and player info for the VfB Soccer team based in Stuttgart, Germany. The application also includes a mini soccer game for users to test their skills. Flash provided Geiger with the runtime environment to rapidly develop multimedia content and applications for mobile handsets with varying operating systems, processors, and screen sizes.

Best Educational Application: Tan Gekhua created the Travelers Language Survival Guide. With the power of Flash, Tan created a mobile, easy-to-use guide that pronounces nine common phrases from seven different languages and provides simulated video clips and captions for each phrase. The application lives on the device for immediate access at any time.

Best Business Application: Stock Portfolio, developed by Nick Gerig of Flash Cell Ltd., is a sophisticated Flash application that lets mobile users receive personalized and near real-time snapshots of stocks. It also provides an extra level of detail and functionality for more advanced users.

Best Productivity Application: Mobile TV Guide, created by Jermaine Anderson, allows UK TV viewers to access weekly program listings on their mobile phones. Users can also send alerts to friends and set reminders for a particular program.

Best Animation: Smashing Ideas’ Andreas Heim created the fun animation known as 2001. This two-minute cartoon, complete with music and sound effects, shows you what could happen if you’re a determined astronaut in search of a snack from a very tall vending machine. As an experienced Flash developer, Heim was able to save time and money by leveraging his existing Flash expertise and multimedia assets.

Best Overall Use of Macromedia Flash: Floogle SMS extends the Google SMS service with a Macromedia Flash front end. Mads Bjerre created the Floogle SMS application to send queries to Google services from a mobile phone.

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