Flash app development extended to HTML users

Software builders will be able to use HTML development skills to make applications based on Adobe's Flash technology for rich Internet applications, through technology developed by startup FHTML.

Introduced this week, the company's FluidHTML product serves as an HTML-like, text-based markup language for authoring Web sites and applications in Flash, said Michael Collette, CEO of FHTML, on Tuesday. Applications are rendered onscreen by the Flash plugin technology, he said.

[ Related: Could HTML 5 technology kill Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight? ]

"It's a relatively simple extension of your existing skill set,"  Collette said. Anyone, the FHTML Web site says,  can build "highly animated Web sites, ads, media players and 3D animations quickly and easily."

FluidHTML serves as an alternative to Adobe's Flex language but unlike Flex, FluidHTML applications are not compiled. Instead, a real-time interpreter is used, providing an advantage in making content searchable, said Collette. Deep-linking also is enabled. This can provide linkage between a catalog and a banner ad, for example.

FHTML's business plan calls for enabling applications to be built for free, with a fee charged at deployment. The technology goes into a limited testing phase next month, with general availability planned for December.

Tiered pricing for a small Web site deployment ranges from $99 to $499 for a site with as many as 50,000 visits a month. Enterprise-level pricing also will be offered.

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