February 02nd 2006 | Jens C Brynildsen

Flex 2 Beta 1 out on labs

Most software companies use beta testers. Some of the companies even put their beta's up for the public to download and try. Adobe went further and even put out an Alpha some months ago. Now is the time to see what's improved.

Make sure you catch Aral Balkan's post " titled " A Wake-up Call: How Flash Can Lose the Net" where he discusses the Flex pricing and how wrong prices could give Sparkle the lead. Adobe officials quickly corrected some of the info this article was based on and Aral then posted a follow-up where he concludes: "Adobe gets it". For a complete overview of the new features in Flex 2 Beta 1, read here.

For now - the compiler and the Flex framework will be free. This is a great move that will take Adobe a long way. The Flex Builder plugin for Eclipse will be priced under $1000. A fair price for many, but expect to see several Open Source alternatives using the free compiler rather quickly after launch.

Finally there's the Enterprise version. It will be really expensive but it will offer AMF gateway,SOAP and an extensibility layer to connect to legacy enterprise systems. Most Flash/Flex developers won't need this, but in case you do - there's a free version of the Enterprise version as well. It's crippeled by a low number of concurrent users (like FMS2 ), but you can test all the features and how it integrates with legacy systems you have.
Click to go to Adobe Labs to download/test Flex 2 Beta 1

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