Microsoft has licensed Adobe's Flash Player runtime for the Internet Explorer Mobile browser as well as Reader LE to display PDF documents on Windows Mobile-based phones. The two technologies will be made available to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) worldwide, who license Windows Mobile software, Adobe announced.

“People want vibrant web experiences and access to entertainment and information anywhere, anytime,” said John O’Rourke, general manager, Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft Corp. in a press statement. “Bringing Flash Lite and Reader LE to the Windows Mobile experience will give consumers more of their favorite websites on the go.”  

Indeed, Adobe's two formats are among the most used formats in the world. PDF documents have already established themselves as a standard format for documentation such as user's manuals, technical specifications sheets, e-books, scientific articles, and much more. The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) was first created in 1993 by Adobe and is an open standard, and recently took a major step towards becoming the ISO 32000. The latest format is PDF 1.7, created by tools such as by Adobe Acrobat version 8.x.

Adobe Flash originates in Shockwave Flash and more recently Macromedia Flash. Macromedia, which introduced Flash in 1996, was acquired by Adobe in 2005. Flash has now reached version 9 or CS3, which offers full support for ActionScript 3.0.

“We are thrilled to work with Microsoft to add playback of rich, web-based Flash Player compatible content and PDF document viewing to Windows Mobile,” said Al Ramadan, senior vice president, Mobile and Devices at Adobe, in a joint statement.