If an application is clustered across multiple CPUs, Flex Data Services licensing starts at $20,000 per CPU. Flex Data Services is the renamed Flex Presentation Server plus additional capabilities for data management and messaging.

Adobe's pricing moves make Flex 2 more competitive with AJAX, which has enjoyed the economical status that comes with primarily being open source, said Richard Monson-Haefel, senior analyst at the Burton Group. "I don't think Adobe had much of a choice if they wanted to remain competitive," Monson-Haefel said.

Flex Data Services 2 can push data from the server to the client. Server-side intelligence can extract data from SAP, for example, and send it to the client. Flex Presentation Server capabilities now are embedded within Flex Data Services.

Adobe's push technology was cited as a highlight of Flex 2 by beta user Jeff Maling, president of Roundarch, which does consulting and development for clients such as Citigroup and the U.S. Air Force. The feature improves efficiency by eliminating the need for polling between the client and server, Maling said.

"Really, for the first [time] in any enterprise fashion, Flex is able to push data to the [Web client]," Maling said.