Flex News Desk

With just 8 weeks to go before the first ever "Real-World Flex" One-Day Seminar, Adobe today launches Flex 2, with a free Adobe Flex 2 Software Development Kit (SDK) designed to give application developers a "free entry point" into the Flex 2 product line.

The Flex 2 product line - combined with and Adobe Flash Player 9 - aims to bring the power of Flex development within reach of every application developer, says Adobe. With powerful tools based on Eclipse, a robust data services offering, and the introduction of the free Adobe Flex 2 SDK, the company believes that it is "equipping developers to build a new class of rich Internet applications with improved usability and effectiveness."

The Adobe Flex 2 product line is available now in English. The free Adobe Flex 2 SDK includes the Flex framework and command line compiler. Adobe Flex Data Services 2 Express, which includes a single full production license for deploying applications on a single CPU, is also available free of charge.

Adobe Flex Builder 2 is available for an estimated street price of US$499. Adobe Flex Builder 2 with Charting is available for an estimated street price of US$749. List pricing for Adobe Flex Data Services 2 is US$20,000 per CPU plus maintenance and support.

Adobe's goal with the Flex 2 product line is to provide developers with a comprehensive, integrated set of tools and technology for what it calls "fast, end-to-end development of rich and innovative web applications."

"With the Flex 2 SDK and Flex Data Services 2 Express, a single-CPU production license that provides powerful message-based data management services, developers have everything they need to build and deploy complete rich Internet applications with no software licensing costs," the company said, in its announcement accompanying today's news.

For increased productivity, the announcement notes, developers can use Flex Builder 2, a powerful Eclipse-based IDE that includes a library of built-in controls and services for application development and UI design.

For more information about Adobe Flex 2, including system requirements and supported platforms, Web Developer's & Designer's Journal readers are invited by Adobe to please visit http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/.