Cold Fusion hosting company CFDynamics has announced an agreement with Adobe to provide free application hosting for participants in the just-announced Adobe Flex 2.0 Developer Derby.  According to the companies, the Developer Derby showcases the talents of developers in developing new and unique applications using the Flex 2.0 Beta software.

''CFDynamics is proud to serve as the premier host for the derby. We look forward to hosting what are sure to be some excellent and unique applications," said Jason Egan, CFDynamics Vice President of Customer Relations, during the announcement.

After downloading the Flex 2.0 software, developers in the Derby use their originality and skill to develop the applications. An independent panel of judges from the developer community will judge the submitted applications and select one winner in each of six categories: Product Configurators/Self-Service Guided Applications, Components and Gadgets, Data Dashboards, Mashups, Communication/Collaboration and Just Freakin' Cool (aka-Wild Card).

The competition will use a points system, and the applications will be judged on originality, ease of use, design and use of the Flex features, the companies say.

The Flex 2.0 product line provides developers with a powerful and extensible application framework, intuitive programming model, standards-based data integration, and a powerful Eclipse-based integrated development environment (IDE) for application development and UI design, according to Adobe.

With an extensive component library, advanced data integration, and support for standard back-end server infrastructures, Flex 2.0 enables developers to build virtually any type of rich Internet application, from simple interactive sites, to rich data dashboards and portals, to data intensive enterprise applications, the company said.