Adobe Tops Microsoft for NFL Streaming

Power up, football fans: NFL is streaming its NBC Sunday night games live for free, CNET reports. Using Adobe's Flash, it streamed one game this week and is continuing tonight with the Chicago Bears' matchup against the Indianapolis Colts. The technology offers a few tricks, too: a “star cam” that stays on key players, in-game highlights, and live statistics.

The NFL-Adobe partnership returned Flash to prominence after NBC used Microsoft's Silverlight program to stream the Beijing Olympics. Adobe struck back in a press release about the NFL deal, noting that no download is required with its technology. But the company best not crow too soon, an industry expert warned: “Microsoft could mark its Olympic foray as only the first big starter in the long slog toward mass adoption." (More NBC stories.)