Adobe AIR 1.0 and Flex 3! We released Adobe AIR and Flex today along with a host of other great things. We have created an open source portal so you can keep track of the large number of open source projects at Adobe.

This is a big release. With Flex 3 we made a lot of enhancements to a very powerful RIA framework. Adobe AIR allows developers of both Flash and Ajax to take all of their skills and create desktop applications. That means you’ll be able to do things with your web applications that the browser doesn’t currently support but you can still be sure that it will run cross-platform and consistently. We’ve got a ton of great example applications on the AIR Marketplace and we’ll be talking a lot more with members of the community at Adobe Engage today.

We just announced the dates for On AIR Europe and we’re hitting 12 cities across Europe over a 4 week time span. Instead of bringing the bus along we’re going to be doing a train tour but you’ll still be able to follow us over the live feed, Twitter, and the chat. We’re really looking forward to meeting and talking with the web development community in Europe so hopefully you can join us for one of the events. We’ve got a Facebook page set up as well as a list of all the events on Upcoming. Here’s the full list:

• Madrid - 31 March
• Paris - 2 April
• Amsterdam - 4 April
• Brussels - 7 April
• London - 9 April
• Dublin - 11 April
• Stockholm - 2 June
• Berlin - 4 June
• Warsaw - 6 June
• Prague - 9 June
• Munich - 11 June
• Milan - 13 June

I just blogged about uvLayer a really interesting blend of social networking and rich media that uses an AIR client built in Flex as the primary application. The team over at uvLayer has done a lot of things to help create a social experience out of a rich Internet application. They’ve incorporated Facebook and a real time sharing feature that makes watching videos a collaborative experience. Head on over and download the application.

It was a really great week for Flex and AIR at DEMO this week and there are some really awesome companies building on the Adobe RIA platform. BusinessWeek picked up some of the standouts from DEMO and highlighted some of the AIR applications that were shown on stage:

Another intriguing trend at this year’s DEMO is the way numerous entrants have made use of Adobe’s (ADBE) AIR technology. Unveiled at last year’s DEMO, Adobe AIR is used to create rich Internet applications that can run both while a computer is connected to the Internet and, to some degree, when it isn’t.

AIR-based entrants at this year’s DEMO include Joggle, an online service designed to organize the files you have scattered among the hard drives on multiple PCs in a single browser window. Joggle was created by Fabrik, a vendor of external hard drives that is familiar with the confusion people face when trying to remember which documents, songs, photos, and videos are stored on which computer. Other DEMO participants that utilize Adobe AIR are Acesis, which created data-management software for health-care providers, and Israel’s 2Win Solutions, which built a Web-based collaboration application called KonoLive.

The Adobe evangelists are spreading out across the United States, Europe, and even Australia this month to talk to Adobe user groups about the new features in Flex 3 and Adobe AIR. If you’re interested in hearing about how Flex and AIR can help you or even just what all of the buzz is about, this is a great, informal way to do it. Here’s the full list of cities and dates:

Updated: Now with Australia/New Zealand dates

Along with the recent Flex Builder 3 public beta 2 release Adobe recently announcing the new packaging and pricing for Flex Builder 3.

Adobe Flex™ Builder™ 3 Standard Edition - $249
Adobe Flex™ Builder™ 3 Professional Edition $699

Flex Builder 3 Professional Edition adds the following feature:

• Data visualization and charting components
• Memory and performance profilers
• Flex test automation framework

Upgrade Pricing:

• Flex Builder 2 to Flex Builder 3 Standard Upgrade - $99 US
• Flex Builder 2 with Charting to Flex Builder 3 Professional Upgrade - $299 US
• Trade-up from FB Standard to FB Professional - $499 US

New Flex Builder 2 Pricing

Starting on November 1, 2007, Adobe will be re-pricing Flex Builder 2 to align with the new Flex Builder 3 pricing, so you will be able to purchase Flex Builder 2 for only $249 US and Flex Builder 2 with Charting for only $699 US.