Macromedia Central, a desktop browser-like interface for Flash applications, is now available for beta download. Central provides a central interface for Flash applications developed by Macromedia and third parties. The applications can be free downloads or sold by the third party. All the transactions are handled by Central with Macromedia getting a cut, of course.
Currently, the only two applications available are an MovieFinder (movies by zip code with links to more information) and AccuWeather (current temp, humidity and three-day forecast.) Macromedia will soon release an SDK beta that allows anyone to build apps for the service. The cool thing is that Central works both off and online. Data is downloaded automatically every so often (depending on the application) and stored locally. So if you happen to be on a train and want to find a movie playing later that day, you still can. And, the bandwidth usage is minimal when online since only XML and Web Services data is being pulled, not the entire UI information. The one downside to the beta is that memory optimization is not complete. With just the AccuWeather application running, Central is using 25 M/bytes of memory on my Windows 2000 machine.
Near term, most applications developed for Central will be more consumer in nature, but Macromedia’s Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch has a long term vision of enterprises building their own applications to run in the Central environment. All that is needed to download the 1.8 M/byte install file is Flash 6. Version 1.0 of Central should ship by the end of the year, Lynch says.
