Adobe Systems announced it will start licensing its Adobe Flash Player software for mobiles devices at no cost to improve the mobile Internet experience.

The project, called the Open Screen Project, is supported by a group of industry leaders, including ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics, Marvell, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Verizon Wireless. The project is dedicated to driving rich Internet experiences across televisions, personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics. Also supporting the Open Screen Project are several content providers, including BBC, MTV Networks, and NBC Universal, who seek to reliably deliver rich Web and video experiences live and on-demand across a variety of devices.

The Open Screen Project is working to enable a consistent runtime environment — taking advantage of Adobe® Flash® Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR™ — that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and devices, including phones, mobile Internet devices (MIDs), and set top boxes. The Open Screen Project will address potential technology fragmentation by enabling the runtime technology to be updated seamlessly over the air on mobile devices. The consistent runtime environment is intended to provide optimal performance across a variety of operating systems and devices, and ultimately provide the best experience to consumers. [Adobe PR]

According to Adobe, its Flash Player currently reaches over 98% of Internet-enabled computers and more than a half billion handsets and mobile devices. The company also said it is working on a version of Flash for the popular Apple iPhone.