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Flash Lite is a stripped-down version of Flash player which allows mobile handsets to view content on websites developed using Adobe's Flash technology.

However, the software has been criticised for its inability to display sites created with Flash 9, the latest edition of the software. It was also famously dismissed by Steve Jobs at Apple's annual shareholder meeting, where he described it as "not capable of being used with the web."

Despite the criticism, Flash Lite is available for mobile devices and Microsoft's Silverlight is not. The company says it intends to release a technical preview of Silverlight for Mobile in the second quarter, but has not revealed the timescale for a full roll out.

Financial details were not disclosed, nor whether the licensing deal would continue once Microsoft releases Silverlight for Mobile.

Microsoft had not responded to our requests for comment at the time of writing.