Later today Adobe Systems will release Flex 2.0 Beta Products on Adobe Labs, enabling developers everywhere to build Rich Internet Applications that will engage users more effectively.

The Flex 2.0 components include:

• Flash Player 8.5 – the latest high-performance client runtime
• Flex Framework 2.0 – the core programming model and component library for Flex
• Flex Builder 2.0 – an Eclipse based IDE for developing RIA’s with Flex
• Flex Enterprise Services 2.0 – data services and adapter architecture for delivering data intensive RIA’s
• Flex Charting Components 2.0 – extensible components for advanced data visualisation

The latest edition to the Flex 2.0 product line is Flex Enterprise Services, which includes the current functionality of Flex 1.5 as well as many new features such as automated testing, enterprise messaging support, data services, client-side messaging, data queuing and synchronisation and much much more! For more information check out Flex Enterprise Services 2 at Adobe Labs.

As for pricing and licencing there have been many new changes that will help the Adobe Flex product line penetrate the RIA and web development market. A win for the open source and smaller developer community, the Flex Framework will be made available for free of charge through the Flex Software Development Kit (SDK). Flex Builder 2.0 will be sold for less than $1000 USD and Flex Enterprise Services 2.0 will be free of charge for use by a limited number of concurrent users on a single server. FES will also be licenced commercially.

The Flex SDK includes:

• The core Flex Framework
• The command-line compiler
• Documentation

The Flex SDK contains all the key elements required to develop, compile, maintain and deploy Flex applications that connect to XML and SOAP web services with no additional charges or server licencing required.

So with all this great news be sure to visit Adobe Labs and download the entire set of the new Flex 2.0 Beta product line.

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4. Adobe Flex 2 available NOW!
5. Keep an eye out for Flex 2 Beta 3 today!