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After Decision to Reject Flash, Adobe has moved on to Competitors

DavidLiu | May 27, 2010 |

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After Apple CEO Steve Jobs' decision to reject Flash, Adobe has moved on to Apple's competitors. Jobs' open letter to competitors brought to light the problems with Adobe's oft-buggy software that may plague the smartphone experience. Avi Greengart, the research director of consumer devices at Current Analysis, suggested in 2009 at Current Analysis that by leaving Flash out Apple may be coming up with its own video support set up.

With Flash Player 10.1 set to debut later this year and as well as other Flash alternatives, the need for compatibility between third-party developers and website designers has grown significantly. Greengart noted that "there is still enough Flash-only content on the Web that full mobile Flash could be a short-term competitive differentiator against the iPhone. However, mobile Flash 10.1 has been repeatedly delayed...By that time, the gap may have been closed further."

Flash developers have heeded Greengart's words and officially jumped ship and embraced the rest of the mobile market. Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has promised an official launch before the end of the year, along with a plethora of Android, WebOS, and Research in Motion smartphones and tablets that will be fully supported.

Who's in?

Jobs' main issue, along with other web users, is that Flash on slower systems tends to be buggy and can cause crashes. Adobe's employees are testing Android 2.2 (or Froyo) with a fully functional Flash Player installed. A video of the process that has been making rounds on the Internet show speeds for both Flash Player for videos as well as for browsing was faster that anything either Android or mobile Flash had exhibited before.

Reviewers are suggesting the process is nearly flawless, and see Adobe as effectively proving Apple's accusations wrong. Flash 10.1 on Google's Nexus One, the phone used in the video demo, can be turned off as well as optimized to work only on Flash-enabled websites.

Android and Adobe's partnership has not been kept secret, with Adobe's Web programmers all working with Froyo phones. However, RIM nor HP has come out publicly with efforts to help move Flash 10.1 forward for mobile phones, even with both companies plans to announce support for Adobe. RIM has gone so far as joining the Open Screen Project in 2009, which is led by Adobe and includes partnerships with Motorola, Nvidia, HTC and Nokia among others.

David Wadhwani, the general manager and vice president of the Flash platform business unit at Adobe, said, "It's a natural fit for both companies (RIM and Adobe) to work together to bring Flash technology-based video and Web content to BlackBerry smartphone users."

HTML5 Isn't Ready

The Open Screen Project has proven that there is mutual respect, however not many have come out publicly to defend Adobe or Flash after Steve Jobs' public letter that criticized the platform.

Even with that criticism it does not look like Flash 10.1's omission on the iPhone or Windows Phone will hurt Adobe as long as the other players wait for the release. HTML5's coding standard is not expected to be fully developed for years to come so Adobe 10.1's release in June will enable it to take the lead by the time HTML5 becomes widespread.

Many websites, like Hulu, are currently still using old versions of the Flash player to support their videos so the availability of Flash on mobile browsing would benefit these websites unlike Apple's expectations for its "walled garden" of available platforms only suited for iDevices.

Despite web polls from notable tech blogs like PCWorld and InfoWorld declaring that 55 percent of their readers agree with Apple on the matter of Flash, the largest players are still on other platforms. If Android's Froyo, RIM's newest OS and HP's newest tablets all support Flash, then they will still represent a large majority of the smartphone market share giving Adobe an advantage in the web e-commerce marketplace, something that Apple does not seem to mind.