Adobe or Disillusionment v1.0

I'm completely disappointed with Adobe. Kevin Lynch, CTO at Adobe was a keynote speaker at the Web 2.0 conference this morning and sadly, his interview seemed to devolve into a bash session of Apple. He stated that Adobe is embracing the idea that innovation in HTML is back again with the advent of HTML5. The programmers at Adobe are moving Flash (which is at the crux of the Apple bashing) forward. The idea for Adobe is that the story is bigger than HTML vs. Flash and that the two can work in concert. At this point, the interview addressed the issue of Apple and Steve Jobs' statement regarding why Flash is not allowed on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

To be fair, I still think that Adobe is heads above any other company in creating excellent products for designers for both web and print. However, when Kevin Lynch is on stage bashing Apple because of Jobs' refusal to allow Flash on his products (for some very valid reasons) it starts to sound like whining. However, I think for Adobe, there is much more at stake. Apple computer users have stuck with Adobe despite the fact that Adobe hasn't been very Apple friendly over the last several years. Apple computer users have let it pass that 64-bit functionality was introduced to Windows users first, despite the fact that machines running OSX have been 64-bit ready for some time.

Lynch took the grousing a bit further, even by accusing Apple of walling off the web and becoming a closed system. Seriously? That's kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. Flash is the closed system. Proprietary to the max and do they have any competitors that even hold a candle to their product? No. And please don't say Silverlight, that's like saying that GIMP is as good as Photoshop. Yes, Silverlight is good, but it's not Flash. Lynch also went on to say that Apple is impeding competition. Again, who is competing with Adobe when it comes to Flash?

In reality, I think Adobe Execs like Lynch are pissed about their bottom line when it comes to Mac users. Those of you who remember 3.5 inch floppy disks might also recall that Apple stopped supporting their use by eliminating 3.5 inch drives on its computer products long before the PC side of things did. If Adobe chooses to fight this fight in this manner, they will find Flash dying a slow death. Creatives aren't the only users of Apple products anymore and when you get right down to it, developers (both creative and coders) can adapt to work within Apple's requirements. It could be argued that this could push Flash completely off the map.

It may not be HTML5 that is the Flash killer everyone thinks it is. It may just be a combination of HTML5, Apple and developers choosing to tell Adobe that their monopoly on this part of the Web is no longer a viable business model.