Microsoft has already declared that the IE 10 browser on Windows 8 will not have flash or any other plug in for that matter. Adobe is bullish on Flash 11 and is going to offer options for putting flash on Windows 8 through Adobe Air.

Flash 11 To Enabled Developers To Run Flash On Unsupported Systems

Adobe’s next offering in Flash is Flash 11, which will be released in about two week at the company’s Max developer conference. Adobe’s message here is clear — they are still behind Flash and are going to invest in it.

To continue to appeal to developers with Flash’s cross-platform nature, Adobe has a way to by-pass a plugin ban or simply to run in the absence of the plugin. They have introduced the new version 3 of AIR, which allows developers to turn their Flash apps in to standalone apps. This basically means that on systems that don’t or won’t support Flash, developers can simply build Flash right into the software and ship it.

In the meanwhile, Flash has also become 64-bit compliant to take advantage of newer technologies and modern browsers.

Adobe Makes Flash Gaming Even Better With Direct GPU Support

Online gaming is one of the main areas where Flash is used and Adobe is seeking to strengthen it in order to maintain Flash’s relevance in the market. The new flash now supports direct access to GPU and hence provide better graphics performance. It can have a performance as good as a gaming console with FPS rates of around 50 — all inside the browser.

The main highlight, however, is an interface called Molehill in Flash 11. It allows developers to create hardware accelerated 3D/2D graphics. Combined together direct GPU access and 64-bit support, Flash 11 is indeed capable of building extremely powerful apps. It now remains to be seen how they fair in the Windows 8 market post the commercial launch.

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