Apple and Adobe War Dance Continues

Submitted by lalit on May 13, 2010 - 10:04am.

Adobe has started a new ad campaign and their cofounders have written a letter in response to Steve Jobs’ Thought on Flash. In the ad Adobe says, “We Love Apple” and then adds, “What we don’t love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web.” In their ad Adobe is basically trying to portray Adobe Flash as an open platform and Apple as the villain against content freedom on web.

Also in the letter written by Adobe cofounders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, both of them focus on open market and freedom to choice content. Some highlights of their thought on open markets are:

We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web.
When markets are open, anyone with a great idea has a chance to drive innovation and find new customers. Adobe's business philosophy is based on a premise that, in an open market, the best products will win in the end — and the best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors.
We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.
In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company.

If Adobe is so pro openness then why don’t they make Flash an open source software? Both Adobe Flash and iPhone OS are proprietary platforms, even if specifications of both the platform are openly available. Apple is not trying to stop use of Flash on the web, but they are stopping it on their own platform (iPhone OS). Like Adobe says consumers should have the freedom to choice and we think ultimately consumers will decide what they want on web. And early indications are they don’t care if it’s Flash or HTML5.