Cisco and Adobe Systems announced today that Cisco’s Content Delivery System (CDS) now supports Adobe Flash streaming capabilities in addition to traditional progressive delivery. Using the Cisco CDS, service providers will be able to deliver Adobe Flash Player compatible video to PCs and TVs using Adobe Flash streaming capabilities, building on Cisco and Adobe’s shared vision of delivering “any stream to any screen.”

In a conference call announcing the partnership, Paul Bosco, vice president of video and broadband initiatives for Cisco, said that Cisco and Adobe teamed up to address three key problems in the IP home and video arena. First was accommodating carriers’ requests for one integrated platform to deliver media to any screen. Second was responding to customers’ increasing desire for performance and scalability in both flash content and flash streaming content delivery. And the third problem Bosco outlined was how to help customers move aggressively toward a common user interface. Increasingly, demand from all sides has been for a consistent, intuitive experience across any and all devices, whether it be wireline, wireless, mobile, TV or PC, he said.

“Cisco is very much focused on enhancing our ability to support the Flash/Flash streaming content with enhancements across a variety of different – security, performance and tracking –areas and then helping in the distribution, delivery and support for the kinds of things Adobe does with flash in terms of providing a common development environment and common look, feel and experience across a platform.” said Bosco.

The Cisco CDS platform includes streaming intensive Web services, video on demand, time-shifted television, video ad insertion and next-generation CDN services. The Cisco CDS family is part of the Cisco Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architectural framework, which enables the development of converged IP infrastructures designed to deliver next-generation video, voice and data services with mobility. The solution also includes the recently announced Adobe Flash Media server 3 software.

“With the addition of Adobe Flash Media Server 3 in the Cisco CDS, we are expanding the Flash ecosystem and continuing to offer our customers more deployment options,” said Guerard. “By creating a new integrated solution, Adobe and Cisco are offering unique ways to create, distribute and consume content, bringing a new level of interactivity and community to end-users while providing content distributors with more delivery options than ever before.”

He also noted that Cisco’s incorporation of the new server into its CDS system will basically double the performance of the release of Adobe’s existing software but also includes the support of a new movie star version of flash player and Adobe media player.

“It has some important capabilities around supporting H2 64 from a video Kodak perspective, and AAC+ from a high quality audio perspective,” Guerard said. “So really the ability to do high-definition video and high-quality audio across multiple screens from one common environment with streaming of flash video via the Cisco CDS system is really a significant step forward for the industry.”