Dan Rayburn writes “For Adobe, There Is A Lot More At Stake Than Apple Devices, Here’s The Bigger Story“
With no stake in the discussion, he explores how Adobe should be reacting, and points out that Adobe could be worried about losing a chunk of cash they get from the Content Delivery Networks for delivering the proprietary RTMP streaming format, and how the move is to HTTP streaming (and not only for Apple’s iDevices).
No Apple (nor Adobe) apologist Rayburn writes:
For starters, don’t let the discussion get sidetracked by those who want to imply that Apple is supporting HTML5 out of the goodness of their heart or because they want to support some kind of “open standards”. Apple’s decision not to support Flash on their devices is purely a business decision and one they have the right to make. Anyone who tries to imply that Apple is being the “Robin Hood” of the industry and is trying to do away with proprietary technology for the benefit of us all is simply wrong.
While Adobe’s not happy with Apple’s decision, Adobe needs to stop whining about it and adapt their business due to changes that happen in the market. Industries do not sit still, business evolves and any good company evolves with it. While Apple threw Adobe a curve ball, Adobe should stop complaining about the pitch and change their business so they can hit what’s thrown to them. And I don’t mean by filing a lawsuit which would only help Apple and hurt Adobe.
And, after a long and very good article he concludes:
The bottom line is that there is a lot more at stake for Adobe than whether or not Flash works on the iPad. That’s what the media and bloggers want to talk about, but there is a much bigger story here. Yes, Adobe would lose some revenue from content owners not using Adobe products to generate content for the iPhone and iPad, but they will lose even more once HTTP streaming takes over if they don’t throw their weight behind it now.