Tuesday, February 24, 2009

$100,000 for Flash Lite and Mobile Developers!

One of the greatest industry consortiums ever launched has to be the Open Screen Project. The Open Screen Project is a group of leaders in the mobile, computer and technology industries who are standardizing around Flash for a consistent run time experience. Members include (alphabetically) Adobe, ARM, BBC, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Comcast, Intel
, LG Electronics, Marvell, Motorola, MTV Networks, NBC Universal, Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, OpenTV, Palm, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, Verizon Wireless. These are pretty much the heavyweights and others can easily join. This group has also decided to put their money up to help developers.

First, there is a $10,000,000 USD fund for developers. See http://www.openscreenproject.org/developers/get_started.html?promoid=EJZYZ.
From the site:

The Open Screen Project Fund is a US$10 million market development fund that will provide grants to developers in order to accelerate the creation of applications, content, and services that leverage the Adobe® Flash® Platform and run across mobile, desktop, and consumer electronics devices.

The global initiative was created to fuel innovation by directly commissioning select developers to create innovative applications and by providing education, support, and distribution guidance. Adobe and Nokia are the first contributors to the Open Screen Project Fund."

Concurrently, Adobe has launched the Flash Lite Developer Challenge project for Flash Lite Developers with $100,000 in prizes. This is specifically aimed at mobile development using Flash Lite as the development tool.

On the other side of the technology pond, well known venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins has announced a $100 million fund for iPhone developers. The iPhone still does not have Flash capabilities but most of us are hopeful that this will be ironed out so we don't have to boycott the iPhone. Nevertheless, Google and Palm, amongst others, are developing smartphones that will blow away the iPhone so it might not be as relevant in 2 years. Note that Google Android and Flash seem to be a marriage made in heaven. Likewise, the Windows Mobile O/S with Flash is a great combination.

It seems the major heavyweights in the marketplace are vying for the attention of developers. What does all this mean? If you have recently lost your job and are looking for a new career, becoming a mobile developer is probably a very viable strategy in a growth industry. Adobe can help you if you are new to Flash. I have a few free Flex Builder licenses I can give away to people who have recently lost their jobs (sorry - you have to be unemployed to qualify) plus I have a full day of free Flex and Flash training I can provide as a self-paced tutorial so you can get up to speed.

Come join us! This industry is fun. No shortage of money for developers!


6 comments:

  1. Be sure to read over the Terms and Conditions of the Flash Lite Developer Challenge.

    http://www.flashlitedeveloperchallenge.com/terms-and-conditions.php

    "Eligibility...You must be authorized to represent a registered legal entity to participate in this Competition on behalf of the legal entity in question (the Participant). Individual persons are not eligible to participate in the Competition."

    Are they serious??? Oh well...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tim:

    Very sorry mate. I never saw that. I am going to fly this up the internal flagpole immediately. This doesn't seem right.

    Duane

    ReplyDelete
  3. I would love to see that changed.

    I can't imagine that this would be much of a success for them by putting that kind of restriction on the contest....but what do I know. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. UPDATE:

    There are several people looking at this within Adobe. While we cannot immediately find who the source of this text might be, most of us are hoping it was a typo.

    Stay tuned. Thanks again for flagging this. We will get an answer one way or the other.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I just noticed that the text has been changed on the website. It now reads:

    "Eligibility...The Competition is open to everybody, both legal entities as individuals, with the exception of the employees of the Organizer, their immediate family (spouse, parents, siblings, and children) and/or household members and any individuals or legal entities registered in Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan and/or Myanmar may not participate in the Competition."

    I think they meant "both legal entities AND individuals", but I'll take it. :-)

    Thanks Duane!
    Tim

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yep - thanks for flagging this to me Tim. I flagged it internally and it turned out to be a mistake on the original text. Your diligence is most appreciated!

    Now - get coding!! Let's see if you can win some cash! Good luck!

    Duane Nickull

    ReplyDelete

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