MacRumors.com

Adobe announced that Microsoft has licensed Adobe's Flash Lite software for use in their Internet Explorer Mobile browser and in future versions of Microsoft Windows Mobile phones. Microsoft has also licensed Adobe's PDF Reader software.

The Flash Lite 3.x browser plug-in for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile will provide users with access to rich and interactive web content created using Adobe Flash technology. As the most popular and ubiquitous format on the Internet today, Adobe Flash powers many rich and engaging web sites, applications and animations. Adobe Reader LE will allow Windows Mobile users to easily and reliably view and navigate rich PDF content using innovative features developed to improve document readability on smaller screens.

The lack of Adobe Flash support on the iPhone has been a frequently mentioned criticism. Steve Jobs recently addressed this issue, claiming that Adobe's Flash Lite was not flexible/powerful enough, while full-fledged Flash would not perform well on the iPhone. Jobs claimed "there's this missing product in the middle" between Flash Lite and Flash.

A recent report, however, claims that the reason for no Flash support on the iPhone is not a technical one. Instead, Adobe reportedly is interested in Apple also adopting their PDF reader for the iPhone, but Apple won't concede. Apple is presently using their own PDF renderer in the iPhone.