Win 98 venue set for Macromedia tech

MacWeek, August 3, 1998 by Andrea Dudrow

Macromedia Inc. last week announced that its Shockwave and Flash players will be incorporated into Windows 98. The company said the players will be automatically placed on users' machines as part of the operating system's basic installation process.

Diane Rogers, director of product management for the company's Director product line, said the deal provides two benefits for the company. "This establishes us as a Web standard, and makes multimedia playback universally available," she said.

According to Macromedia, Flash content includes vector graphics and Web animations created using the Flash authoring tool or Flash Generator, which creates graphics from data using templates. Shockwave interactive media is generated by Director, Macromedia's multimedia authoring package.

Seema Williams, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc. in Boston, said the deal represents "a very strong argument for the content developers, because you can assume that within six months to a year a significant amount of your customer base is going to have the players."

When users have to install new software or perform additional tasks to access a new media type, she said, "You are going to have a drop-off rate." This won't happen when the players are already installed, she said. "I think they are trying to make sure their players really are ubiquitous."

Macromedia's Rogers agreed. "We are doing everything we can to make the download process faster, leaner, seamless," she said.

Meanwhile, a recent partnership with Netscape Communications Corp. will help to accomplish the same goal for that company's Web browsers.

Netscape licensed the Flash technology, and under the Netscape deal, announced in June, Macromedia's Flash player will be automatically downloaded with current versions of Navigator.

Macromedia Inc. of San Francisco can be reached at (415) 252-2000 or (800) 457-1774; fax (415) 626-0554; www.macromedia.com.