BEIJING, June 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Adobe Systems said Wednesday that its Flash Player will be built into the HTC's new Android-based Hero phone, an important step in the company's efforts to spread Flash to mobile phones.

    Android, Google's open-source operating system on mobile phones, was adopted by several HTC phones. The Hero phone is scheduled to ship in Europe starting in July and in Asia and North America later in the year. The price has not been announced.

    However, the initial version won't match Flash Player 10, the current version for PCs, which can run programs written with ActionScript 3. Instead, the Android version will handle ActionScript 2 applications written for Flash Player 9, Adobe said.

    "Flash Player 10 for mobile platforms that include Android is expected to be available in the first half of 2010. We are working on delivering a beta of Flash Player 10 in the fourth quarter of 2009," the company said in a statement.

    The Flash support will be built into the phone and not available as a download for other Android phone users, Adobe said.

    Flash is a significant feature on the Web. It powers many games, streaming videos, and dynamic stock charts, and other elaborate features on Web pages. And Flash is also used for many more dynamic advertisements.

    Apple's iPhone doesn't run Flash, though Adobe would like to see it there and has been developing a version.

    (Agencies)