Adobe has traditionally attracted designer types, while Microsoft is more heavily associated with developers. No more. Adobe launched a new Web design and development tool on Monday, called Catalyst.

Adobe has traditionally attracted designer types, while Microsoft is more heavily associated with developers. So when Microsoft interface design guru Bill Buxton introduced new features in Expression Blend that let designers build working Web interfaces at the Mixx09 conference this past March, Adobe received a wake-up call.

On Monday, Adobe responded with a similar tool, Catalyst. The company has also eliminated some confusion about its tools names, changing Flex to only refer to the free Flash development framework for rich internet apps (RIAs), while rechristening Flex Builder to Flash Builder 4.

The Flex application framework will remain a free, open-source codebase, while the Flash Builder 4 integrated development environment (IDE) will sell for an unnamed price. It's currently available as a free beta download.

Adobe claims the new design product, Catalyst, will be more welcomed by designers than Microsoft Expression Blend, because although the Microsoft product can "import" files from the most popular design tools, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Catalyst natively supports them. After a designer builds a working interface in Catalyst, complete with button and interface state changes, the work can be passed on to a developer to implement logic in Flash Builder, easing the job of UI coding.

"People are now expecting the same richness and ease of use in their workplace applications that they have in their daily Web experiences, but companies today are faced with strained development resources and less time to create intuitive applications," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of the Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "The new Adobe Flash Platform tools help solve this challenge by reducing time to market for generating compelling applications and content. Using Adobe Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst, developers and designers can now work together more productively to create rich experiences that employees, customers and partners expect."

Adobe's Flash plug-in is installed on 98 percent of Internet-connected PCs, compared with somewhere between 25 percent and 50 percent for Microsoft's competing Silverlight technology. This advantage has made Flash a more attractive target for web developers, though Silverlight has avoided some problems in Flash, such as sites being invisible to search crawlers like Google and Yahoo. Both technologies allow sophisticated graphics and logic in Internet apps.

Interested web designers and developers can download the new coding technologies starting today from labs.adobe.com.