Macromedia is now shipping the recently introduced Macromedia Studio MX 2004, which includes updates of Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Studio MX 2004 will also be available with Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 for advanced developers.
Also available is Macromedia Flash Player 7, the latest version of the Internet client. The new version offers twice the performance of previous versions, user-controllable update notification and new development capabilities, according to Macromedia.
Studio MX 2004 for Mac OS X (10.2.6 and higher) and Windows is available for immediate download from the Macromedia Online Store. Pricing is US$899 for new users, $399 for upgrades from Studio MX, $499 for upgrades from any eligible product and $199 for education customers. Studio MX 2004 with Flash Professional is available for $999 to new users, $499 for upgrades from Studio MX, $599 for upgrades from any eligible product and $249 for education customers.
Macromedia DevNet Professional members receive the products contained in Studio MX 2004 automatically as part of their annual subscription. Corporate, government and education volume licenses are also available. These products are available in English now, with Simplified and Traditional Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish due later this year.
Macromedia has also announced the Macromedia Studio MX 2004 K-12 Site License Solution for education customers. Due next month, the solution offers Macromedia Studio MX 2004 for Mac OS X and Windows for use throughout the school, project-based teaching curriculum to help teachers integrate Macromedia tools into academic subjects and online training from Macromedia University.
Meanwhile, optimizations in Flash Player 7 double the performance for many operations. The new player offers particularly significant performance gains for Mac OS X users, according to Macromedia. The new user-controllable update notification capability lets users keep up to date with the latest version. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) support enables developers to blend HTML and Flash with formatting.
New support for Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Web services connectivity allows developers to create Internet application user interfaces that handle enterprise data in a service-oriented architecture. Macromedia Flash Player is a free download and is available for download at the Macromedia Web site in both English and localized versions.