Adobe to buy Nitobi in mobile push

Adobe has agreed to buy Nitobi Software, a maker of programming tools that convert HTML5 web applications into native iOS, Android and BlackBerry apps.

The buy would give Adobe another option to tout Flash developers besides its own AIR platform.

“[Nitobi's] PhoneGap is a fantastic solution for developing a broad range of mobile apps using the latest Web standards, and is already integrated with Dreamweaver CS5.5,” said Danny Winokur, vice president and general manager, Platform, Adobe.

PhoneGap would remain open source under the stewardship of the Apache Software Foundation, while Adobe would retain a proprietary version, PhoneGap Build, that allowed developers to build apps without the mobile platform software developer kits.

Adobe also released Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 was expected to be released on Monday in the US.   

The latest Flash Player and AIR 3 would offer "up to 1000 times faster rendering performance over Flash Player 10 and AIR 2," according to Adobe. 

The company announced its buy at its MAX conference for developers.