Adobe today announced that the pre-release alpha version of Adobe AIR software for Linux operating systems is available on Adobe Labs.

The Linux community of developers can now use proven Web technologies, such as HTML, Ajax, Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex software, to build rich Internet applications (RIAs) that deploy to desktops across operating systems. RIA developers can extend the reach of their desktop applications on Adobe AIR to Linux users without writing additional platform-specific code.

An update to the alpha version of Adobe Flex Builder 3 for Linux software is also available on Adobe Labs today (www.adobe.com/go/flexbuilder_linux ), which adds support for creating applications that run on Adobe AIR. The combination of Flex, Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player 9 for Linux comprises a well supported, free RIA development platform that enables developers to build, debug and deploy RIAs entirely on Linux, and across browsers and desktops.

Also announced today, Adobe joined the Linux Foundation to accelerate the growth of RIA technologies on the Linux platform. Additionally, Adobe recently released the free Flex framework and BlazeDS as open source, and the company continues to contribute to the open source Tamarin virtual machine, hosted by the Mozilla Foundation, which is the core of Adobe Flash Player.

Flex, Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player are key elements of the Adobe technology platform. Flex is a free, open source framework for building interactive RIAs that can be deployed on the desktop with Adobe AIR, or in the browser with Adobe Flash Player. Adobe Flash Player reaches over 98 percent of Internet-enabled PCs.