(November 21, 2003) - At the 2003 MAX conference, Macromedia announced that it has formally applied for membership in Ecma International, an industry association dedicated to the standardization of information and communication technology, which developed and maintains the key standard ECMAScript (ECMA-262 and ISO/IEC 16262) - widely known through implementations such as Netscape JavaScript, Microsoft JScript, and Macromedia ActionScript. ActionScript is used as the procedural scripting language for Macromedia Flash and Macromedia Flex.

By joining Ecma International, Macromedia will take a key role in the ongoing development of the ECMAScript standard in the organization’s programming language technical committee (TC39). The goal of TC39 is to maintain a single leading standard for scripting that can be used for as many competing implementations as possible, and makes "forking" unnecessary.

"Standards have become business critical for any company building Web development and deployment technologies," said Jan W. van den Beld, secretary general, Ecma International. "Macromedia has clearly shown its commitment to open standards over the years and they are a welcome addition to ensuring the continued flexibility and power of ECMAScript."