Adobe opening “Flash City” stores around the world

Posted by Serge Jespers on Apr 1, 2009 in Cool stuff, Flash, open screen project | 7 comments

Today, Adobe announced a partnership with Media Markt for Europe, Dixons for the UK and Best Buy for the US to launch the Adobe Flash City stores. All three chains are opening up stores in 68 cities all over the world today. Adobe has started production of a “Flash City” branded consumer electronics line that ranges from mobile phones to set-top boxes and from refrigerators to toasters.

“We are doing this with our Open Screen partners. It made sense to not only work together on getting Flash on to these devices but also combine our marketing power to build a new world wide brand,” Adobe’s recently hired Itsa Notru (VP of Consumer Enablement) said. She continued: “This is just the beginning. While we are releasing consumer electronics today, we are also looking at creating more advanced applications of our technology. You will soon see Flash enabled X-ray machines and even Flash enabled airport security scanners.“.

The BBC has already announced the availability of the iPlayer to run on the Flash City toasters. The BBC’s Anthony Rose said: “Our marketing team identified breakfast television as an emerging market segment for on-demand viewing and asked the iPlayer team to see if we could come up with something new in this space. Developing the iPlayer Toaster Edition has been hot and demanding work and our test team is glad it’s done – frankly they’ve had it eating burnt toast, even though they did manage to catch up on the entire MasterChef series.“.

I’m still in the process of getting the complete list of stores that are opening today and will update this post when I get that. Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to go to your local Media Markt, Dixons or Best Buy and ask them about the Flash City stores and products.

I’ll be visiting the Flash City store in Antwerp later today. Hope to see you there.