Macromedia execs show some Flash
By Lisa M. Bowman, ZDNet
SAN FRANCISCO -- Macromedia Inc. executives unveiled the latest versions of the company's Flash and Director multimedia software Tuesday, showing off ways the new Shockwave.com venture can give Web games, movies and greeting cards more pizzazz.
Macromedia CEO Rob Burgess told an audience at its users conference here that his company has its eye on consumer and business customers and is hoping to provide developers with the tools to reach them.
Burgess said other media, such as radio and television, eventually evolved into forms of entertainment, and he expects the Web to do the same.
"This is really a sign of things to come," Burgess said as he showed off his company's new offerings. "This business is about taking entertainment to the next level on the Web."
Macromedia (Nasdaq:MACR - news) showed off the new Flash 4 authoring software, which will let developers synchronize video and audio to Web animation using MP3 and Apple Computer Inc.'s (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) QuickTime 4.
"We think this is going to add a lot of fuel to the Flash revolution," product manager Kevin Lynch said.
Targeting set-top market
In addition, Norm Meyrowitz, president of Macromedia products, said the company would target set-top boxes and handheld devices with Flash 4. He showed how Flash could be used to display animated charts and interactive cartoons on a PalmV handheld, saying it was a sign of things to come.
The company said it would make the new Flash 4 player source code freely available to developers, so they can add more graphics, audio and video features to their own sites.
During his keynote, Burgess showed how consumers might use its new Shockwave.com site, which was introduced Monday, to send video greeting cards, play 3-D games and save games and play them offline.
In one example, Burgess composed a greeting card featuring characters from the Comedy Central show "South Park." Using Shockwave.com, he laid down a setting, added characters to it, and selected phrases for them to say, in essence making a mini-movie by pointing and clicking on various menus.
"We can't do it all yet, but we can compete very favorably with a lot of the stuff you see on TV," Burgess said.
In the future, the company plans to focus on high bandwidth and products that let companies constantly update their sites without much effort.
Director 7.02 introduction
In other news, the company announced:
The introduction of Director 7.02
A partnership with Mpath Interactive Inc., which will let the companies develop multimedia products for large numbers of simultaneous users.
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