Kevin Lynch

ou could say Kevin Lynch is on extended academic leave.

Lured into the business world when he was an undergraduate, Lynch began writing software as a preteen, enthralled by the notion of helping humans interact better via computers. His early work was expressed in a 3-D graphics program, a desktop publisher for the Macintosh and a series of adventure games.

Lynch's best-known work for Macromedia is probably Dreamweaver, the Web authoring tool, which he says generated more revenue in the first few months than the company expected it to produce in a year.

His latest project is Central, technology that will create a new Internet environment for applications based on Flash, which is probably Macromedia's most widely used contribution to the Web world. Lynch says Central will act as a container for centralizing data from multiple sources,offline and inline,displaying or acting on it according to a user's preferences.

"It will unite applications in ways that developers didn't anticipate," he says.

Lynch, 37, readily admits that interactive games are still his obsession and creative inspiration but he also names as a role model a more serious fellow, Ben Franklin.

"He was an inventor but also a great thinker. I really admire people who are a blend of capabilities," Lynch says.