MacRumors: Adobe CEO Responds to Steve Jobs' 'Thoughts on Flash'
Narayen again returned to his claim that Flash is an open standard, calling Jobs’ claim of it being closed “amusing”. Adobe’s view of the world is multi-platform, allowing it to provide developers with tools to easily deploy their content across many devices and platforms, a concept that may not to Apple’s benefit in trying to lock customers in to its ecosystem.
So what he’s saying is that Apple is pushing for open standards like HTML5 and that’s just another way to lock customers in to its ecosystem? Riiiiiiight… moving on:
In conclusion, Narayen noted that customers have the ultimate voice in the dispute, and he believes that multi-platform solutions like Adobe’s will win out.
According to Adobe’s CEO, Flash is a multi-platform solution while HTML5 is not. Uh, say what?
Adobe is framing this as an Apple vs Flash battle — i.e, one proprietary solution vs another. Apple is framing this as an HTML5 vs Flash battle — i.e, a proprietary solution vs an open solution. Given their respective positions, it makes sense that they would each frame it in the ways they have.
But consider this - who has more at stake in this battle? If Apple wins, Adobe loses their lock on interactive media on the web. If Adobe wins, Apple starts supporting Flash in iPhoneOS 6.5 or whatever and things continue as they were on the desktop. Adobe appears to be battling against someone with very little to lose. On the other hand, Adobe has a lot at stake. By spending all of their time focusing on Apple, they risk losing everything.
And that doesn’t strike me as being a particularly good move.
