From Macromedia's Press Release:

Macromedia Announces Flex 2 Product Line and Flash Player 8.5

New Eclipse-based tool to enable millions of application developers to build engaging and effective rich Internet applications with the Flash Platform

Macromedia, Inc. today announced the Macromedia Flex 2 product line and Macromedia Flash Player 8.5, the foundation for building effective rich Internet applications that blend the responsiveness of desktop software, the cross-platform reach of the web, and the breathtaking expressiveness of the Macromedia Flash Platform.

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Flex Builder 2 is an all new Eclipse-based environment for developing rich Internet applications with the Flex Framework. Flex Builder 2, previously code-named Zorn, can incorporate rich media content from the recently released Macromedia Flash Professional 8, the leading authoring tool for creating rich interactive content.

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Flash Player 8.5 adds industrial-strength programming power on top of the expressiveness introduced in Flash Player 8, creating a state-of-the-art, cross-platform runtime. It includes a new virtual machine that offers faster runtime performance, full runtime error reporting, improved debugging, and ActionScript 3. ActionScript 3 complies with the latest ECMAScript specifications, and increases developer productivity by making it easier to find and fix errors earlier. Flash Player is currently installed on over 600 million desktops and mobile devices globally, and new versions reach 80 percent of computers on the web in approximately 12 months.

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Flex Builder 2 will be sold for less than $1000 per developer and will include the ability to develop, compile, and deploy Flex applications that connect to XML and SOAP web services with no additional charges or server licensing required.

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Alpha versions of Flex Builder 2 and Flash Player 8.5 are expected to be available for download on October 17 in conjunction with the MAX 2005 developer conference. The alpha version of Flex Enterprise Services 2 will be available later in the development cycle. All of these products are expected to be commercially available in the first half of calendar 2006. For more information, please visit: http://www.macromedia.com/go/flex2intro. To sign up to be notified when the public alpha of Flex 2 is available for download, please visit: http://www.macromedia.com/go/flex2notify.

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More info at their press release and Mark Anders' Blog.

Update: Mike Chambers recorded Kevin Lynch's presentation at the Web 2.0 conference where Flex 2.0 and Flash 8.5 were announced. The video can be viewed at Mike's blog and Google Video. During the 15 minute presentation, Kevin uses Flex 2.0 to build a Flickr image viewer in about 5 minutes.

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