Adobe's last chance at success.

Adobe Systems are currently in the middle of the biggest fight for market share, as this year is likely to be the make or break point for the company.

On September 22nd, Adobe announced the release of CS4 and began providing details on what the next wave of its creative tools will have in depth. At the time of this release they didn’t provide a time in which consumers could buy or download the said products.

Fast forward to October 14th, the day of Silverlight 2 release and Adobe announce to the world via Evangelists that Adobe CS4 and Flash 10 Player are now available approx 10 hours after Silverlight 2’s release.

Its clear Adobe is in reactive mode and my sources have told me that Adobe fully expected PDC2008 to be the coming out part for Silverlight 2. Adobe weren’t prepared for Microsoft to release their Flash compete technology early and so the scramble to drown out Microsoft’s press coverage was fumbled at best.

My source also informs me that it was critical that Adobe keep both Flash Player 10 and Silverlight 2 clocks synchronized, as given Microsoft are using downloads per day whilst Adobe are using % of penetration, the two are causing confusion amongst their respective consumers. Having both runtimes released on the same day, will give Adobe a firmer foundation to leverage at the next release cycle to highlight their growth vs. Microsoft’s using either % penetration or downloads per day.

Adobe needs to keep their growth campaign firmly locked as any sign of wavering will result in validation of Microsoft’s success, which is something they definitely need to outpace.

Sadly however, Adobe is simply reacting badly to Microsoft’s every move, specifically around the actual release of Adobe CS4. In a blog post by Lee Brimelow, (Oct 19th) Adobe’s Flash Evangelist he outlines 4 tough questions that needed answering from apparently the community.

These questions are being meet with hostility but more over two of the questions highlight Adobe’s weakness around their launch and it’s failure. At the time of writing, Lee’s only response to the questions was:

Heard back already from the Flash Player and MAX teams and they are going to
write something up. Please be patient though as it may take a little time to
compile. Thanks :).

Lee’s response highlights that maybe MAX 2008, Adobe’s annual product event will be the most likely place for his 4 proposed questions to be answered.

MAX 2008 is likely to be the last ditch effort to save the Adobe CS4 launch campaign, and it’s expected that Adobe AIR 1.5 will be the distraction the company needs. Adobe AIR 1.5 is expected to highlight a lot of the rationale behind why Flash 10 has most of the features it has today, specifically with regards to the new Text Rendering Engine, which is not presently inside Flash 10 (expected later this year).

Adobe is expected to tip their hand at how Adobe Acrobat PDF extension and Adobe Flash binary format (SWF) are likely to merge together under the one runtime. This will be either a make or breaking point for this merger, as the runtime definitely now has the capability of achieving the technical benchmark that PDF has today, but more over this will position the Adobe AIR in a way that compliments the vision of Adobe, to be the rich media format of the internet.

Adobe MAX 2008 will also likely outline the company’s plans to leverage the online add-ons that Adobe CS4 and future revisions will have given parts of the tools use Flash for their Graphical User Interface. In using Flash for parts of the user interface, this puts Adobe in a position to ensure they can continue to grow their tools business, but not impose buying and upgrade fatigue at the same time.

That all being said, it’s also important to note the company is also going through a DNA change, whereby most of the key architects and executive level have left the company in the past year. This is also evident given, Lee’s response to the various teams not having answers to the basic launch questions one would expect from any software company around release time.

Ryan Stewart, an Adobe employee and blogger for ZDNet seems to be quiet on this matter at hand. When asked his thoughts on the matter, it was meet with an ignored response. It's clear Ryan's simply not able to be critical of Adobe at a time when it's most obvious.

Adobe's RJ's in full spin mode.

Here is a recent video interview by Beet.TV with our CTO, Kevin Lynch, where he mentions that the Adobe AIR runtime environment has been installed on 35 million PCs and will reach 100 million by the end of the year, due to so many great AIR applications being built by our customers. Incidentally, one of my personal favorite AIR applications is eBay desktop developed by eBay, which recently announced on their blog that eBay desktop had already been downloaded a million times.

Anyone pickup on the problem with the above blog post from an Adobe Evangelist named, RJ Jacquez?

1. 35 million PC's? it was 25million last count so unless there is a new stats release i've not read from Adobe or did he just add another 10million on to inflate it further?
   
2. 100 million PC's will have Acrobat Reader 9 installed by end of 2008.
   
3. The installs aren't a result of "so many great AIR applications built by customers" it's actually due to the Adobe Acrobat Reader 9. That being said, it sure sounded good though, had me almost convinced.

Adobe AIR get's the red light.

Was reading TechCrunch Today and noticed this:

Naughty America, a porn production company based out of Southern California, is building an Adobe Air-based storefront called Naughty America Direct that is basically an iTunes for porn. The app includes full-length DRM-free scenes for $1.99 each that are available in formats compatible with the iPod and iPhone,and requires no subscription. [Read More]

This is brilliant news for Adobe AIR installations. As this will certainly drive the numbers up, but on the flip side this is also very bad news for Adobe AIR.

Think about it. If Adobe AIR is used / abused in the above way as in order to ban this you need to lock down Adobe AIR. There isn't a lot you can lock Adobe AIR down with and so it's both a blessing and curse in the one call.

Blog spammer?

I've just started this blog and I've already had someone "anonymously" declare it as spam by launching the auto-bots.

I've also noticed that my post on FlexCoders hasn't quite made it to the list.. Adobe are a very immature and aggressive company at times.

Why won't Adobe measure Flash against Silverlight.

I saw this question on FlexCoders today, and thought it was a fantastic question, one i'm sure Adobe will groan at.

Excuse the mild OT, just curious if anyone knows why Microsoft Silverlight
stats are not included here in penetration comparisons:

http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/

It would seem to me, with Silverlight having fairly low penetration stats I would imagine (even after the Olympics) that this would be a huge marketing plus for Adobe. Millward Brown, commissioned by Adobe, did the survey just this past June, it seems silly the product most closely competing with the Flash Player is
Silverlight and it’s not included in the comparison

Adobe's offical response by Flex's newly appointed from the engineering ranks - Product Manager, Matt Chotin:

I'm not sure how much we're going to get into penetration battles by puttingthat data in our survey results directly. But I know the marketing teams are thinking about it :-)

He's new so forgive his rush to be seductive to the FlexCoder horde. The actuality Matt is you don't want to say things like that firstly unless you have a follow-up story and secondly you don't want to get into this, as the answer below from me indicates why (engineers who get promoted to look after a products message is a foolish thing to do, MBA's are hard to get for a reason).

My answer:

Jeff is kind of right. It's got more prickles than just 'free air time', as if Adobe do start getting into tracking the competition publically they will in turn illustrate its growth rate, in which case this could end badly for everyone on the list (as it just got that much harder to sell Flex into mainstream development teams).

Moreover, I don't think they know to be blunt, as the ubiquity study has not been touched in ages, and it’s showing signs of its actual age with growing questions around its accuracy. Adobe have also been contradicting themselves lately with download numbers (why oh why did they bend to Microsoft’s will on this is something I would love to ask their marketing team). An example was when Emmy mention in July 2008 80% of the 18million installs (per day) came from the ActiveX Page on Adobe.com.

This in turn highlights that there is not only 18million per day installing Flash, but 80% of them are not doing it via the Adobe Updater as we have all been spoon feed to believe. The truth of the matter however, is that Windows XP has always been a strong distribution force in their story around ubiquity, but given it’s now no longer allowed to be sold by OEM providers, this in turn means Adobe have to fight a new battle around their distribution story.

The OEM bundling or any deals like this is where the full attention should now be, as the average user online right now has proven they aren’t scared of plug-ins for one and two it’s considered a normal “thing” now days, despite the ‘fear’ campaigns.

Signs of positive growth from Adobe are there if you look, for instance the 20million AIR installs seemed impressive, yet as PhillipKerman pointed out (which Ryan Stewart has now suddenly deleted this post? which just confirms it even further), the real story there is that 20million AIR installs didn’t come from the “twitter” like applications, it actually came from Acrobat 9 bundling, as you can’t opt out of the AIR installation.

Tactics like this is where the next version of the story is going to end up, and the 98% statistic is not illustrating the true story, as if you fast forward and assume Flash and Silverlight both have 90% ubiquity, what will the conversation be next?

Adobe need to ignore Silverlight battles as they are fighting the wrong battle. They need to get back to basics again as being successful is one thing, retaining success now this is the real fight they have on their hands. As ubiquity is more a state of mind, psychological if you will around plug-in fatigue and less about realistic expectations of end users.

- P.R
http://shadowoperative.blogspot.com/

How do get the Adobe iPhone kids excited.

It's simple, turn up to an event, tell all attendees that you have a pre-cooked runtime baked and ready to be deployed onto the beloved iPhone.

Now sit back and wait for these kids to tell other kids and just like a really bad Seth Godin game plan (flip the funnel) the world will simply eat it up...

Just like throwing a single bone into a sandbox filled with puppies, they are all slobbering and wetting themselves over the very thought of having Flash on the iPhone.

Take Igor, he seems to be bit of a Adobe Flash fan, and his response to the equation is to fight the existence that Adobe Flash isn't immature and Apple are simply playing hard to get.

Sorry to burst the bubble here Igor, but this is something you won't read in next months "Adobe Devconnection".

Apple & Microsoft have had to release security updates and patches to compensate for Adobe's inability to keep their oh so powerful run time secure. That's right, it's the only technology in the world that has had operating system vendors fix their crap for them.

Now, you expect Apple to cave to Adobe fanboi demand and inject a security nightmare waiting to happen onto their beloved iPhone just so Adobe can stroke their ego around promoting the fairytale about being "open screen".

The moment Apple inject Flash on the iPhone, all bets are off for Apple. They may as well suck it up and make a bid to take over Adobe should that happen, as despite Adobe Flash's awesome ability to fight above its weight, it's still Flash.

Adobe's attempt to hijack the iPhone by public pressure is weak at best and for a company that's fighting with Google, Microsoft and now Apple it's also going to help their stock price even more right?

Stick to the basics Kevin Lynch.

What the blogging hell?

Created a blog. Whom will read it I have no idea. I decided to create this blog to keep my collective thoughts about Adobe, Microsoft, Apple and Google in the one spot.

I have one simple charter to live by with this blog. I'm not interested in promoting the above in any positive way, i'm simply going to call bullshit on majority of what they do and outline why the f#@k they are hosing the average developer.

This is basically the cheat guide to undestanding this new breed of powerhouses known as today's software companies.

I don't like or want comments as they are a form of retardation in it's best form. If you disagree or agree with what is said on this blog, good for you champ - but be clear, i'm neither interested in or give a f#@k as to what your opinions are.

So feel free to close the URL door on the way out.