Microsoft is to offer Adobe’s Flash Lite player on its mobile operating system, two weeks after striking a high-profile deal with Nokia concerning its own video viewing software. According to the Adobe deal announced today, Microsoft will distribute Flash Lite to mobile phone makers who use its Windows Mobile software. Flash is very prevalent on the Web and over half a billion mobile devices have shipped worldwide with Flash preinstalled. As well as Flash Lite, the agreement also includes Adobe’s Reader LE, a software package to read PDF files on mobile devices. According to reports, Microsoft declined to comment on how much it is paying Adobe to license the software but the programs will remain free to end users.

Microsoft already offers a direct competitor to Flash, called Silverlight. Earlier this month the company announced a deal with Nokia that will see Silverlight initially available on Nokia’s high-end smartphones running a Symbian operating system. At the time of the deal Microsoft stated that Nokia’s S60 platform will be the first to take advantage of Silverlight. S60 is used in handsets built by LG and Samsung as well as Nokia and is the most popular smartphone software platform with more than 53% market share. It is used in Nokia’s latest N96 phone, the successor to its popular N95. Microsoft launched Silverlight last year, in a bid to compete against Adobe’s Flash Players, used by popular websites such as YouTube.