BlackBerry browser adding Flash and Silverlight support?

Research In Motion is reportedly planning to integrate full Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight support into future versions of the BlackBerry web browser. According to the Boy Genius Report, which says it's been gathering details for roughly a month, RIM likely will not introduce Flash and Silverlight support until the summer of 2010--in the interim, the handset maker must achieve higher data speeds to support its proposed web features. BGR adds that next-generation BlackBerry devices have already achieved download speeds over 10Mbps in RIM test labs.

Adobe Systems is also poised to launch trial versions of its Flash software for Symbian, Palm and Android smartphones--with BlackBerry now on board, there remains a glaring exception: Apple's iPhone. In June, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch told The Wall Street Journal that the firm has assigned engineering teams to all major smartphones, but the delay has little to do to with technological challenges: "We need to have Apple's agreement before we can do it," Lynch said [1].

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen says customers have been petitioning the company to extend Flash to the iPhone, but in March 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs contended [2] the iPhone requires a media player more robust than the existing Flash mobile solution. According to Jobs, the Flash Player for laptops fits the bill, but it is designed for devices larger than the iPhone, and therefore performs too slowly on smartphones. "There's this missing product in the middle," Jobs said.

For more on the BlackBerry browser rumors:
- read this Boy Genius Report article [3]