tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post114792767805127194..comments2024-03-25T21:41:06.801-07:00Comments on Mobile Opportunity: Flash versus Windows: Can Adobe break Microsoft?Michael Macehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-61763631671643660192008-06-03T12:31:00.000-07:002008-06-03T12:31:00.000-07:00Hey, its a great article. Very constructive thinki...Hey, its a great article. Very constructive thinking. No bias but I would place my bet on Microsoft. It has a history of coming in late and killing everyone else. I definitely would like them to have some competition. I am just not sure who that will be. Google? No way! Adobe? Maybe. Sun? They are already dead!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-59536286166536161732007-07-19T05:48:00.000-07:002007-07-19T05:48:00.000-07:00Quite interesting remarks, you made here, so I had...Quite interesting remarks, you made here, so I had to cite you on my blog:<BR/><BR/>http://www.newsofthefuture.net/index.php?/archives/11-Windows-or-Mac-The-OS-doesnt-matter-in-the-future.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1153262611839397622006-07-18T15:43:00.000-07:002006-07-18T15:43:00.000-07:00Hi, Jose.Thanks for the note. I wish I could help...Hi, Jose.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the note. I wish I could help with your project, but unfortunately I don't know Adobe's IT, HR, and Ops teams well enough to do a SWOT analysis on them.<BR/><BR/>Sorry.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1153261906629038212006-07-18T15:31:00.000-07:002006-07-18T15:31:00.000-07:00Mike I really enjoyed reading your article. Extrem...Mike<BR/><BR/> I really enjoyed reading your article. Extremely helpful, especially for a Business Student like me.<BR/> Now I would like to know if you could give me your opinion about Adobe's Strenghts and Weaknesses concerning Operations, IT and HR. I am doing a project for school about this compnay and although I am almost done with it, I would like to have a different perspective towards this matter.<BR/> Thank you very much,<BR/> Jose M. Burgos-Benitez.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1149749166201351072006-06-07T23:46:00.000-07:002006-06-07T23:46:00.000-07:00Very interesting comments, Chris. Thanks for post...Very interesting comments, Chris. Thanks for posting them.<BR/><BR/>I'm not sure that you and I disagree all that much; I think we're just looking at the elephant from different perspectives. <BR/><BR/>I was trying to point out what Adobe's trying to do, not predict its odds of success. I think many of the questions you raise will be settled by how Adobe executes (and they'll need to execute extremely well to make this work.)<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>>> the hard part is device management, not presentation.</I><BR/><BR/>I don't think Adobe's limiting its product to presentation. It looks and sounds like a full runtime environment to me. But we'll have to wait and see.<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>>>One developer tells me that she doesn't see herself spending lots of time 'rewriting the application'. She spends lots of time finding the 2 lines out of thousands that have<BR/>to be changed to get the application working on some new device.</I><BR/><BR/>Good point. The conversations I've had with Java developers have been about how much time they spend, not what they spend the time on. So a better word choice on my part would have been "reworking the application."<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>>>the midp1.0 spec is a disaster....The midp2.0 spec is getting widely implemented, but it did not fix this fundamental problem, it just added more APIs.</I><BR/><BR/>Agreed. I'm hearing optimistic rumblings about midp3.0. What do you think?<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>>>there is no verification suite to check that a phone complies with the spec. Qualcomm has done this with Brew and it makes a huge difference.</I><BR/><BR/>And I'd expect Adobe to do a good job of this with Apollo, based on its history. But that's one of those execution issues.<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>>>You can't just slap on Brew and say you support it - you have to pass their damn test! The Nerve! Hence the rather pitiful number of Brew devices in the US.</I><BR/><BR/>Do you really think that's the main explanation for the number of Brew phones? I think it also has something to do with most of the operators not pushing it. If they all demanded Brew phones, I think you'd have a lot of Brew phones.<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>>>Does this application need to be signed to access some api?</I><BR/><BR/>Oh, man. Don't get me started on the subject of signing apps. I sometimes feel like signing is a voodoo incantation that the operators apply to applications whenever they feel insecure. Meanwhile, it has a terrible effect on small app developers – not only do they have to pay for signing their apps, but you have to re-sign every time you rev the app, which discourages bug fixes and feature additions.<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>>>Switching to a new platform isn't going to make these problems go away. </I><BR/><BR/>It depends on execution. If Adobe sandboxed its environment properly, there might be less perceived need for things like signing (hey, I can dream). Or, something that the platform vendors could (and should) start offering is automatic signing when you check an app into the software store. <BR/><BR/>I think the platform companies need to define more broadly what it is that a platform is responsible for.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Anyway, I think you're right that a new platform isn't automatically a panacea for a lot of problems. But I think that Adobe's going to tackle at least some of those problems as part of its offering. How many, and how well they'll do it...we'll have to wait and see.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1149723560606112632006-06-07T16:39:00.000-07:002006-06-07T16:39:00.000-07:00Having watched several colleagues and friends stru...Having watched several colleagues and friends struggle with j2me phones for the past 4-5 years, I think you are woefully misunderstimating what's wrong today and what a new platform can do.<BR/><BR/>- the hard part is device management, not presentation. <BR/><BR/>One developer tells me that she doesn't see herself spending lots of time 'rewriting the application'.<BR/>She spends lots of time finding the 2 lines out of thousands that have<BR/>to be changed to get the application working on some new device.<BR/><BR/>- the midp1.0 spec is a disaster.<BR/><BR/>It was designed for set-top boxes, not phones, and goes out of its way to make it <I>difficult</I> to use the phone's native UI and features (like, say, the phone book and making calls). The midp2.0 spec is getting widely implemented, but it did not fix this fundamental problem, it just added more APIs.<BR/><BR/>- most of the implementations have nasty bugs at a low level (like the on-phone storage system)<BR/><BR/>- there is no verification suite to check that a phone complies with the spec. Qualcomm has done this with Brew and it makes a huge difference. <BR/><BR/>- but device manufacturers whine that it's "too hard" and don't/can't/won't play the game. You can't just slap on Brew and say you support it - you have to pass their damn test! The Nerve! Hence the rather pitiful number of Brew devices in the US.<BR/><BR/>- the tools just suck, and the carriers don't help. The generic emulator works OK for development. Getting the midlet on the phone is a new hurdle every time: What Midlet permissions does this platform require (what is required on one will cause another to fail).<BR/>Does this application need to be signed to access some api?<BR/><BR/>That isn't even platform or carrier dependent -- the Cingular Motorola<BR/>RAZR does not require signing but the Cingular Motorola SLVR does.<BR/>What's up with that?<BR/><BR/>Switching to a new platform isn't going to make these problems go away.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1149397367697355912006-06-03T22:02:00.000-07:002006-06-03T22:02:00.000-07:00Liam wrote:>> Doesn't the wi-fi smartphone elimina...<B>Liam wrote:</B><BR/><BR/><I>>> Doesn't the wi-fi smartphone eliminate most of the scenarios where thin clients fail in a mobile context?</I><BR/><BR/>It helps, but it still won't give you coverage everywhere. In fact, the places where you tend to find WiFi (urban areas) are also the areas where you usually have 3G coverage.<BR/><BR/>I admit it, I just have a strong antipathy to thin clients. I think mobile devices are all about instant gratification, and that's so darned hard to do with a wireless thin client. For example, I was working with a Sprint phone today on their EVDO network. I was using a thin client mapping app, and every time I scrolled the map it had to go out to the server to fetch the graphics, causing a five to 30 second delay, apparently due to network latency. It drove me nuts!<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>I do believe that web standards are progressing fast enough to serve developers.</I><BR/><BR/>That's cool. The more competition the better. Let's encourage the web standards folks and the proprietary folks to have at it, and may the best environment win.<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>The area with gaps is at a higher level -- app integration, e.g. how do developers provide a custom app inside a wiki environment.</I><BR/><BR/>That's an interesting thought. I'm used to thinking of wikis as text and graphics things, not programming environments. Care to expand on what you're thinking about?<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the comments.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1149350876178465692006-06-03T09:07:00.000-07:002006-06-03T09:07:00.000-07:00Doesn't the wi-fi smartphone eliminate most of the...Doesn't the wi-fi smartphone eliminate most of the scenarios where thin clients fail in a mobile context? Such a phone works as a thin client where wi-fi is available. That's not as prevalent as PCS coverage, but it might be enough.<BR/><BR/>I certainly don't believe that, to paraphrase Sun, "the internet is the PC", but I do believe that web standards are progressing fast enough to serve developers. Look how long it took them to adopt Ajax.<BR/><BR/>The area with gaps is at a higher level -- app integration, e.g. how do developers provide a custom app inside a wiki environment. That context isn't something that Adobe or MS really understands.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1149226125928630692006-06-01T22:28:00.000-07:002006-06-01T22:28:00.000-07:00Liam wrote:>>Open, web-based UI platforms are the ...<B>Liam wrote:</B><BR/><BR/><I>>>Open, web-based UI platforms are the only acceptable solutions now, except for complex problems like gaming.</I><BR/><BR/>Thanks for the interesting comments.<BR/><BR/>I don't think it's just a matter of UI. I'm looking at what the overall development platform will be; what do the developers write to?<BR/><BR/>The web open standards folks have been moving extremely slowly on the infrastructure and standards needed to make mobile data work. Thin clients fail utterly in the mobile world, and there's a lot of pretty complex technical and business infrastructure that needs to be built. I think a fast-moving company might be able to establish a de facto standard, just as Apple has established a de facto proprietary standard for mobile music.<BR/><BR/>To me, the big question is whether Adobe can move quickly enough to win. I'd feel a lot better about their prospects if they had made the flash player free already.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1148974679806284682006-05-30T00:37:00.000-07:002006-05-30T00:37:00.000-07:00The real question is, can Adobe or MS break the We...The real question is, can Adobe or MS break the Web? I'm not surprised to find Adobe & MS going down this path, but they're wasting their time; there's ample evidence for that.<BR/><BR/>One of the reasons the web made so much headway so fast, despite its simplistic UI capability, was the ease of development, and open platform. Ajax and SVG continue that trend. (Why do you suppose MS is resisting SVG?)<BR/><BR/>Flash is slowly dying on the web, in my experience. When I started using Firefox I didn't have the flash player. I haven't missed it yet!<BR/><BR/>Open, web-based UI platforms are the only acceptable solutions now, except for complex problems like gaming. Developers fill the gaps that currently exist in them with minimal use of flash or Java. In the near future, those gaps will close.<BR/><BR/>The real challenge is building novel platforms on web standards to deliver a more real-time user experience, both online and off. That's an area I have some insights into; see my blog for more...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1148024815616578822006-05-19T00:46:00.000-07:002006-05-19T00:46:00.000-07:00Oz wrote:>>I work for MS as a Flash prototyper. Ca...<B>Oz wrote:</B><BR/><BR/><I>>>I work for MS as a Flash prototyper. Can you say irony?</I><BR/><BR/>The only way it'd be more ironic would be if you worked in the Mac software team up there ;-)<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the nice comment, and by the way I liked your post asking for an <A HREF="http://polygeek.com/category/adobegooglems/" REL="nofollow">Adobe Flash handheld</A>. You're right, it would be cool (and I think there's a chance we'll get it, if not from Adobe then from someone they license to).Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1148021259180451922006-05-18T23:47:00.000-07:002006-05-18T23:47:00.000-07:00Mike, thanks for taking the time to craft such a w...Mike, thanks for taking the time to craft such a well thought blog/essay. Great work. <BR/><BR/>I'm doing my part to help foster Flash developers and the platform. Which is a bit of a conflict for me since I work for MS as a Flash prototyper. Can you say irony? :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1147985529138216202006-05-18T13:52:00.000-07:002006-05-18T13:52:00.000-07:00blk wroteis Adobe confident that the handset mfgs ...<B>blk wrote</B><BR/><BR/><I>is Adobe confident that the handset mfgs will provide that 'basic hardware platform' on an almost ubiquitous basis so that flash can become the 'default' environ for developers</I><BR/><BR/>Excellent question, and you're getting to one of the most important barriers to the adoption of a mobile software layer.<BR/><BR/>I don't know how confident Adobe is, and I can't speak for them. But in practical terms a lot will depend on how fat and resource-hungry they make the Flash/Apollo mobile runtime environment (and how fat and hungry the WPF/E runtime is).<BR/><BR/>I'm sure that today's low-end phones won't be able to run it, but the hardware specs in mobile phones are improving rapidly, and the operators are willing to subsidize phones with media features that they think will drive revenue. <BR/><BR/>The trick for Adobe and Microsoft will be to ride that wave of midrange 3G phones, what the phone industry calls "feature phones." They do have the horsepower to run a reasonable layer, and the operators will be subsidizing them because they want to move people to 3G.<BR/><BR/>(Note that if Microsoft pursues this aggressively, it will undercut the market for full Windows Mobile. It's yet another tough decision that Microsoft needs to make.)<BR/><BR/>As long as Adobe continues to try to charge for mobile flash, I think it'll get some wins but won't become ubiquitous. If Adobe gives it away, I think a lot of operators will spec in the runtime on all their phones that can run it, because it's a Web standard and they want mobile Web stuff in general.<BR/><BR/>Adobe should have done this already -- the 3G wave is already well established in Europe, and is coming on fast in the US. There's a long lead time to get software into phones, so actions taken today won't have an impact for another 12-18 months or so. <BR/><BR/>I'm skeptical about how many phone users will be able to download the runtime directly. A lot of these feature phones are semi-closed and allow you to download apps only into a sandboxed environment. That's fine for Flash applications but I suspect the Flash layer itself would need deeper access to the hardware, which means updating the phone's ROM. Much better to get it built in.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1147976123901828472006-05-18T11:15:00.000-07:002006-05-18T11:15:00.000-07:00Nilofer M. wrote:>>Do you have an understanding of...<B>Nilofer M. wrote:</B><BR/><BR/><I>>>Do you have an understanding of what is going to be key in the developer community. Is it better care and feeding?</I> <BR/><BR/>It's a lot of things, but I'll give you my take on it. In my experience, developers usually support a platform for one of two reasons:<BR/><BR/>1. They think they can make a lot of money from it. In general, this is what drives the big software companies, although it also drives some startups.<BR/><BR/>2. They can do cool things with it. This is what motivates the most creative small developers. They don't have the most money, but they are the people most likely to produce breakthrough apps.<BR/><BR/>So the business proposition that you provide to developers is key -- how many apps can they sell, how easy is it to reach customers, how fast is the installed base of the platform growing. This is one reason why I think it's important for Adobe to give away Flash in the mobile world, because it's the most direct way to build a really significant installed base.<BR/><BR/>The tools and quality of the APIs are also critical, because that's what lets developers get cool stuff done. The best developers are like artists in the sense that they want to express their ideas as fluidly as possible. Give them an easy and powerful tool and they'll flock to it.<BR/><BR/>A platform grows best when you provide <I>both</I> opportunities to do cool stuff <I>and</I> expectations of rapid growth. See Macintosh circa 1988 for a great example.<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>>>Do you think the mobile HW companies have an incentive to work with Adobe vs. MSFT?</I> <BR/><BR/>I think the operators are the key. If they want a platform they will tell the hardware companies and it'll get installed. But they're not going to pay significant sums of money for it. Better to give them the software and make your money other ways.<BR/><BR/>I'm going to do a post on this in the next week or two (as soon as I get the time to write it up).<BR/><BR/><BR/><I>>>How do you see the economic strength of MSFT playing a role?</I><BR/><BR/>As always, Microsoft can spend any competitor into the ground if it wants to. I think the interesting situation in this case is that in order to fully compete with Flash, Microsoft has to put more and more goodies into WPF/E, which weakens the differentiation of Windows. So Microsoft has to hurt one part of its business to strengthen another. <BR/><BR/>Microsoft is trying to compromise its way through this situation by withholding some features from WPF/E. This gives Adobe a huge opportunity -- if it executes well.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17898384.post-1147968379670334362006-05-18T09:06:00.000-07:002006-05-18T09:06:00.000-07:00By the way, here's an interesting article on Flex ...By the way, here's an interesting <A HREF="http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2005/12/04/anderson/" REL="nofollow">article</A> on Flex and how it's developing. There's also some commentary comparing it to Microsoft's tools. I think it's a good overview, and helps to flesh out the picture of what's happening.Michael Macehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966107280587843091noreply@blogger.com