Adobe makes web development free

Adobe is making some serious moves into corralling the mobile development market. It’s just announced its latest plan for mobile domination, called the Open Screen Project, with a series of big-name partner like Cisco, Intel, LG, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, and the BBC all getting involved.

Adobe says the project is aimed at “enabling a consistent runtime environment — taking advantage of Adobe Flash Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR — that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications” across all handsets and other devices, and allow all mobile programming to be updated over the air.

Here’s the nuts and bolts of what Adobe will do:

– Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
– Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
– Publishing the Adobe Flash® Castâ„¢ protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
– Removing licensing fees – making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

Making it cheaper and easier for developers to write for a variety of mobile operating systems – what’s not to like?