Can Flash Breakthrough Again?

I’ve been thinking ahead, after reading Adobe’s CEO’s controlled reply to Jobs condemning remarks of his company and Flash technology. Consider this hypothetical situation in the next couple of years: No doubt Apple has lit a fire under Adobe, and Adobe knows it’s do or die time for Flash. Imagine Adobe manages to get their act together, and with the combination of faster new processors and an meaner/cleaner Flash kernel, a new class of products come out coded in Flash for the tablet and mobile market. Maybe this new genre of product includes some sort of interpreter, sort of an easier version of Hypercard for mobile devices. Now, a whole new class of individuals are empowered to create some of the most interesting mobile apps out there.

Maybe Adobe creates an incredible free magazine authoring tool, which allows anyone to create and read their favorite mashups of blogs, news, sports, and real magazines in Flash. Or maybe they give it to real magazine publishers and help them publish on tablets and other devices which use Flash (they already own the print part of this technology with InDesign and Acrobat).

Or, maybe there is another new single incredible Flash breakthrough, one which can reshape whole industries like Flash video did for companies like YouTube. Whatever, just something GREAT.

If this comes to pass, what exactly happens to Apple’s positioning with regard to Flash? My guess is Steve is too dug in to ever go back, and even if he did “relax” and request Adobe forgive and port to iPhone, why would Adobe even consider? It would make for smart business to not make the mistake of doing business with one so fickle as Apple has been in all of this.

Let’s see, it Tuesday and which way is the wind blowing in Cupertino? This is the situation Apple has now found itself in, one which it cannot take back. It is a mistake, and why Steve should’ve never made this personal. In fact, most CEO’s would’ve handled all of this in a much more tactful manner- one which wouldn’t have created problems for their company moving forward, no matter the circumstances. Funny, you think Jobs has been around long enough to know what goes around, eventually, comes back around, and you have to deal with it.

Food for thought.

Posted via email from Shafer Walters Group