Adobe CEO downplays Flash, iOS feud, says Android tablets will dominate iPad
Narayen made the comments in an on-stage interview with journalist Walt Mossberg at the D9 conference hosted by All Things D. When asked by Mossberg whether "Adobe and Apple are done having the argument" over Flash, the executive said, "Absolutely."
Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Narayen engaged in a public war of words last year. Last year, Jobs published an open letter accusing Adobe Flash of not having "performed well on mobile devices." Narayen fired back with his own letter dismissing Jobs' comments as a "smokescreen" and blaming "the Apple operating system" for crashes that Jobs had attributed to Flash.
During Thursday's interview, Narayen asserted that the disagreement between the two companies hadn't ultimately been about the technology. "It's a business model issue, and it's about control of a platform," he said.
Narayen continued to stress Adobe's multi-platform strategy, noting that applications compiled in Adobe AIR can be easily converted for iOS and Apple's App Store. According to the executive, Apple has been approving such applications because it "still has control of the business model associated with it."
The Adobe chief touted the fact that his company will have 130 million phone devices that run Flash by the end of the year. However, Mossberg responded by interjecting that he had "yet to test a single one where Flash works really well,"
Narayen compared himself to "a kid in a candy shop" working with companies producing non-iPad tablets. âI think the community is vibrant. Iâm really excited,â he said.
"There is more power on these devices now than when we delivered Photoshop on a PC several years ago," Narayen said. "So we are clearly betting on these devices not just being consumption devices but also productivity devices for our community." Narayen promised that Adobe would bring all of its creative applications to tablets.
Just as with smartphones, Android, which supports Flash will eventually hit "an inflection point" with tablets and overtake the iPad, Narayen predicted. He also sees HP and RIM gaining traction with tablets in the enterprise.
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When you take the rate of iPad growth, Android Tablet growth, and Adobe Flash decline I think that whenever this supposed day happens Flash won't be around to see it. Google will need to figure out how to get people to buy apps too. I'm not sure how meaningful fire sale growth is. I'm sure they will gain as much traction in the enterprise as Adobe Air...
Oh boy. This should be good.
"There is more power on these devices now than when we delivered Photoshop on a PC several years ago," Narayen said.
Ah, the good old days when Photoshop and most other Adobe software (I'm looking at you Illustrator and Acrobat Reader) wasn't a bloated piece of junk. Of course, this is what happens when there is no competition.
As for Flash, I foresee its heyday coming to an end. I don't know if it will ever completely disappear, but I think its dominance is going to fade. After all, when I watch something as simple as Hulu and the Flash plugin pegs a 2.0 GHz dual core C2D processor at 165% for a few seconds numerous times in a single episode that is not going to cut it on mobile devices.
Apple. Defeat.
Adobe. Fail.
Eventually, the sales of android tablets being made by every other manufacturer on the planet might just sell more than one tablet made by one manufacturer. It might be many years from now, but it'll probably happen, just like with the phones.
When people compare iOS to Android, they're comparing 1 company VS everybody else, which includes hundreds of companies. That tells you how strong Apple is compared to everybody else.