The Register: The value of PC real estate

Flash Player is the world's most pervasive software platform, reaching 98 per cent of Internet-enabled desktops worldwide as well as many other popular devices such as mobile phones and PDAs (source: NPD research April 2003). By comparison, Windows Media Player and Real Player have less than 60 per cent market penetration, and QuickTime Player has less than 40 per cent.

Flash Player was initially developed to deliver a rich media experience on Web sites, but it is now evolving. Macromedia Flash enables designers and developers integrate video, text, audio and graphics into effective and engaging user experiences.

Macromedia is able to leverage the power of the Flash Player to deliver one of the best desktop video conferencing experiences available. The ubiquity of the Flash player enables Macromedia to deliver high quality media streams while being economical of bandwidth. This is of key importance in Web conferencing, and Macromedia recently announced Macromedia Breeze to exploit Flash Player capabilities.

It never ceases to amaze me though, no matter how pervasive Flash becomes, it always becomes a rallying point when discussing web design amonst market-techs (marketers with enough technical knowledge to be dangerous). People always struggle to define just what Flash is, and when you take a poll and go 'round the room, Flash means different things to different people.

Someday...we'll get there...