Jonathan Edwards :

App Ads are potentially a Google-scale cash flow, and Jobs wants it. He wants to sell ads and inject them into apps on the iPhone/iPad/iDesk, just like Google injects ads into web pages. He can’t do that unless all the apps are using his libraries. If he lets Flash apps in, then Adobe would be able to sell the ads instead. That is why section 3.3.9 of the new developer agreement says “the use of third party software in Your Application to collect and send Device Data to a third party for processing or analysis is expressly prohibited”. Like, for example, Ad networks.

After HP buys Palm, some fantasy matchmaking :

Adobe and Microsoft. If Apple keeps hammering at Flash then maybe Adobe has to cuddle up somewhere. What Adobe and Microsoft have in common is that they're good old-fashioned desktop application companies and don't really know how to be anything else. The combination, if not exciting, is at least comfortably compatible.

OTOH, here's what would be exciting : Adobe and Behance. (or Adobe and DesignOutpost etc.)

Apple are dominating markets for creative work through iTunes and the app-store. They're gunning for the rest of it with the iPad as book / magazine / news market as well.

Adobe is the only other brand with such a high profile among creative professionals. It should ask itself whether it's in the business of providing commodity video stream plugins, or whether it's really in the business of helping creative people to produce great work, to distribute that work to their audience, and to get paid.

Why is Adobe not running the most popular site for web and print designers to host their portfolios? Why can I not go to an Adobe site to find a freelancer? (And why are Adobe not a clip-art company? A photo-agency? A talent agency for the kind of people who work on Avatar?)

Adobe is never likely to compete directly with Facebook. But the world is going to get more niche and specialist networks. Adobe ought to grow a presence there; one that will, in turn, help it to understand the creative community it caters to.

Even better, what about Adobe and Ponoko? The future for creatives is to go beyond traditional print / video / web design and move into making : physical objects, product design, smart-materials, desktop manufacturing, etc.

Adobe started as the company that made a programming language to drive laser printers. Where is the programming language to drive RepRaps and the coming breed of 3D printers? Where's the design software for the art school student that wants to design printable furniture? Or jewellery?

Update : Adobe and Behance? It happened!

Apple vs. Adobe

So this is what the whole "originally compiled" thing was about. To prevent Apple's OS's getting wrapped and commoditized by Adobe Flash.

There may be real technical issues to be solved (eg. the "hover problem"). But the real question is the power-struggle.

Blindingly obvious truth that needs to be spelled out :

Steve Jobs is very clever. If Apple had implemented Flash on the iPhone, it would have quickly become the cross-platform standard, and Adobe would have owned the whole mobile-app. market.

Possibly we'd have been talking about an Adobe App. Store.

So Google want to own the browser too.

It's interesting to speculate why. Of course, one possibility is that someone in the hydra-headed Googleplex just started this as their 20% project and it got released.

Or maybe it's just a defensive move to protect web-standards (a Google "complement") against the possible encroachment by proprietory RIA front-ends like Flash and Silverlight? But why not just invest in Firefox or Webkit? Is this just Google's way of doing that? Are they trying to disuade too much fragmentation between these other open-source contenders?

I still believe Internet Explorer is a total waste of time, money, energy and focus for Microsoft. Why wouldn't an "own brand" browser be similarly one for Google?

Not sure ... let's see if they do anything clever with it.

Update : Dare Obasanjo nails an important point :

Will ship with Google Gears built-in

This pushes the Gears offline caching standard (against Mozilla's own rival) and is therefore an indirect attack on the desktop as offline application platform.

Dare's bonus question :

Am I the only one that thinks that Google is beginning to fight too many wars on too many fronts.

I half agree. To me, the most interesting question about Google today is whether, through their 20% time, and their ready engagement of open internet culture, and having pots of money to spare, they've created a genuinely new, decentralized type of company structure, one which is capable of innovating more products and fighting on more fronts at the same time, than a traditional, more top-down, organization.

I'm not wholly convinced they have. But then I'm not wholly convinced they haven't, either. I'm keeping an open mind. But if we see a few more of these bets become successful and profitable, that may signal a Google which is almost unbeatable by more conventional software companies.

Remember this discussion here?

GigaOm interviews Adobe.

Open-source Simbian is good for Adobe Flash (amongst others)

Cringely thinks Apple are ready to buy Adobe. Mainly to get Flash

Adobe OpenScreen

No Flash for iPhone.

Of course not.

Nice try, Microsoft. Seems like Ozzie pushing things forward.

We'll find out if they can really do it.

IE8 support for standards is good news. Compare IE4 ... M$ always support standards when they know they're the underdog. But still not clear what having a browser buys them. And developer support in finding bugs is very nice. (Will help a lot in day-job)

Clearly they "get it" WRT what I was saying here. Flash vs. Silverlight vs. JavaFX (and Android somewhere) is the battleground that counts, both for rich widgets-in-YASNS and for the device-swarm. M$ are pushing Silverlight. Not sure I like the emphasis on advertising, but I see where it comes from. As always, Microsoft's secret weapon is their development tools and community. Visual Studio is ready for Silverlight.

Actually, we shouldn't be surprised by this. "Rich Internet Applications" or this kind of media player / virtual machine is a "sustaining innovation" ... it follows the logic that traditional proprietory software companies like Adobe and Microsoft and Apple are used to : building sophisticated code-bases, having total control over the user's experience, working with your own protocols, supporting it with good tools etc. This is not a game of insinuating yourself into and taking advantage of a massive community defined by open standards. Google would be hopeless here. But M$ will be good.

Of course, it's Apple and the iPod ecology which has persuaded everyone that this is still the game. But interestingly they aren't playing here ... unless QuickTime is due for a revamp. Not sure what's under the bonnet of iPhone etc. but perhaps Apple no longer want to be associated with "platforms" ... perhaps the idea is too geeky for their end-user focus. So Apple could use Silverlight (but rejecting Flash? Interesting, do they see Adobe as more of a rival in "cool-space" than Microsoft?)

In short ... Microsoft are a softare tech. company. This is all about software tech. So they do it well. But that may not guarantee success if Apple's consumer focus trumps. JavaFX is gonna be dead if someone somewhere doesn't come out with some tools to help work with it - which seems less than likely. Even Adobe can't afford to rest on their laurels. They're now head-to-head against M$ in the game that M$ is best at.

Windows 7 to be integrated with Microsoft Live!.

What does it mean though?

MS has two problems :

- the desktop OS is almost a commodity. There are few applications that need Windows's specific services (as opposed to equivalents on Mac, Sun, Linux, or Android) It's hard to imagine Windows 7 doing something that other OSs aren't thinking about or couldn't quickly copy. (LINQ for serious applications? Drivers for multitouch Surfaces? Everyone will have something like that. )

- the PC is about to explode into the device swarm.

How does closer integration between Windows and Live! help in that context. It's not a winning move for MS to make their Live! services dependent on Windows 7. Will they exclude XP and Vista users from Live! in 2010? Unlikely.

After that, they can only compete on "seemless experience". But every time Microsoft compete against Apple on anything resembling an "experience", they hardly have the upper hand.

Now, the natural tethered client of an online service is a light-weight virtual machine like Flash, Silverlight or JavaFx. Not a whole operating system - users will want their virtual machines to play well together in a common sandbox, supporting
copying, pasting, dragging and dropping etc.)

There is scope for some individuation and platform warring among standards for these virtual machines. MS may be able to make Silverlight-only services, but they'll certainly have to make Silverlight run on Mac (and at least condone clones running on Linux)

This kind of virtual machine is also a natural for the device swarm : eg. Flash on Chumby, Java VM on mobiles ... Silverlight on XBox?

So while the desktop OS becomes a commodity, this space is going to get hot as the VMs compete for developers' attention. Particularly smaller devices are only likely to come with one of these virtual machines pre-installed. They'll compete on video-handling capability, graphics library, back-end data synchronization, bredth of applicability etc.

In a sense, the Java vision is finally coming into its own ... although whether Java turns out to be the victor is another matter.

Tim Bray's predictions for 2008 ... worth reading.

Wave of Flash phone-apps?

Steve Gillmor on Silverlight etc.

Personally, I gotta agree with Mark Pilgrim.

In pure platform-warring terms, Silverlight is an almost smart move by Microsoft, although I still think they should have directly tried to get their hands on and embrace and extend Flash / Apollo rather than make their own competitor.

The crucial question for them is how much they are willing for the VM to float freely vs. whether they'll tie it into Windows Vista.Seems like it's planned for MacOS, but not Linux. Will they encourage the Mono guys to clone it? Is this actually a sneaky attempt to wrap MacOS in their own VM?

If I was, say, YouTube, why would I switch from Flash to Silverlight? (Actually, now I'm owned by Google, of course, I wouldn't. Full stop.)

Maybe there are two ways of looking at this.

On the one hand, Silverlight is going up against two strong incumbents : Flash and QuickTime. Both are going to fight back hard, and Flash can position itself as the "already platform independent" platform, because it has no Operating System to peddle (Nevertheless it may acquire a powerful strategic ally in GoogTube.) Clearly MS, rightly, understand that Apollo is a serious and bold attack on their ownership of the desktop (everything that Java tried to do but with a better programming language, a huge existing user-base and cuter graphics). At the same time there's Apple taking over the home entertainment zone with QuickTunes.

Can MS make something so compellingly better that it makes much headway here? Can it be so much better that Adobe or Apple couldn't match it?

On the other hand, maybe the best way to look at this is as MS trying to unbundle some of the multimedia functionality of Windows Vista and give it a more independent life, creating value in other contexts, such as a downloadable component for XP and MacOS.

Or maybe MS will be unable to resist tying in with Vista in the long run to try to sustain their monopoly.