Comments
There has been quite a lot of comment and a number of questions following the announcements regarding Flash and HTML5. I’ve consolidated some additional information below and extracted elemnts of each article to give a flavour of what the author is saying:
Adobe AIR and Flash Player Team Blog
Thibault Imbert
https://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2011/11/focusing.html
Excerpt:
Flash Player on the desktop continues to show a path for the consistent, super duper experiences that are impossible to deliver to over a billion people with any other technology. For example, Flash Player 11 was released only a month ago, and it now enables fluid, cinematic hardware accelerated 2D and 3D visuals for more people on the web than any other technology. Flash Player uniquely does for the desktop what apps do for phones and tablets: it helps ensure that what you imagine is exactly what your users will see. Flash Player remains the best technology for delivering premium experiences on the desktop, period. Focusing helps us make sure that we continue to drive that continued innovation.
We are not stepping out of the mobile space with Flash, we are just focusing on what makes sense and where Flash looks great.
Some Thoughts on Flash and Devices
Ben Forta
http://forta.com/blog/index.cfm/2011/11/9/Some-Thoughts-On-Flash-And-Devices
Excerpt:
Where things get interesting is on devices. Unlike on desktops, where older browsers still reign supreme and where browser innovation has faced slower adoption, device browsers are actually really good and really current. The fact that there are fewer browsers and better browsers, ones that support HTML5 innovation and standards and specifications, in many ways makes Flash far less critical for an optimum web browsing experience. That coupled with the fact that Flash is excluded from the browser on many devices means that web developers already need to code for a non-Flash experience, and that then makes Flash even less compelling for in-browser uses on devices.
Which is why we announced today that we will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser on mobile devices. For in-browser experiences on devices, browsers can finally do what they really should do, and we have HTML5 to thank for that. So that’s where we are doubling down, and we’re hard at work on making HTML5 better (as we showed at MAX) as well as on tooling to support HTML5 development.
But just to be clear, this announcement pertains to the browser plug-in on mobile devices only.
Flash to Focus on Apps for Mobile
Lee Brimelow
Excerpt:
So the big question I’m sure you have is, why did we do this? The decision reflects the reality that the kind of highly-interactive content people build with Flash, games being a great example, are much-better suited to run as mobile apps. Also there is the fact that Flash is not nearly as ubiquitous on mobile browsers as it is on the desktop. Because of these things we have decided to focus all our efforts on taking the AIR runtime to the next level on mobile in addition to new development areas with HTML5 like PhoneGap. No longer having to support the mobile browser version of Flash frees up valuable resources that we can redirect to these more important areas.
Over the last few years I have seen the mobile browser become the place for clean, mobile-optimized HTML sites. Apps are where people go to play games and enjoy interactive content. This is not only true for Flash but also for HTML5. Many are predicting that apps will soon give way to browser-based apps on mobile. I personally don’t see that happening anytime soon. Apps have proven themselves to be great for users and offer clear monetization opportunities for developers.
The composition of the great
Meaning….. today limitations in the HTML5 standard generally make HTML5 useless for building premium content browser based applications meaning premium content provides are now by default locked into Air and mobile Apps.
Stephen Bennett
CTO
Web Audio Visual Engineering
Hi guys,
I appreciate the efforts of my friends at Adobe to try to remain calm and communicate this difficult message at this time.
However, I would like to publicly voice my concern as to the allocation of resources to the flash platform.
We are to understand, from the news reports, and the Adobe financial analysts presentation, that you are laying off approximately 750 members of staff.
Now, I realise that the specific information is probably very sensitive and, to a degree, confidential to each individual, however – we are hearing rumours that Adobe has laid off the entire team responsible for development of the Flash Professional authoring tool. This, as you can imagine, would be hugely problematic for myself and my colleagues in the organisation, and would seem like a somewhat bizarre move.
I would like to get some public assurance from Adobe that this is not the case? Surely it would appear to run counter to the publicly announced strategic direction, and would indicate that Adobe is saying one thing but doing another.
I am pleased to see that Adobe has aggressively consolidated its strategy on HTML5, however I am puzzled as to why, if you are indeed refocusing flash to be a games and desktop development tool (as it always has been) you would discontinue the most important tool used by creative users to author Flash content.
Additionally, I would like to extend my sympathies and best regards to all and any Adobe employees adversely affected by the restructuring.
Sincerely
Alias Cummins
Senior UI Engineer
British Sky Broadcasting
You’re think totally bad:
- people saw titles: “Flash is dead”
- now lot of clients ask: how to rebuild flash stuff to html5 since flash is dead?
- so you see: your marketing sucks (and you too)
you need to understand:
- future of web is mobile
- no flash on mobile browsers = dead flash
you just lost lot of clients which are not going to upgrade / buy new your products since they can’t trust you anymore
When Adobe is going to retire people responsible for this totally wrong decision?
1. Stocks: -10% and very big volume.
2. Community doesn’t want to buy future adobe html5 tools since Adobe lost their trust by dropping Flash.
3. Community know they need to stay away from Adobe as max as possible.
When and who will be the new Adobe CEO?
Actual CEO gave -10% stock.
congratulation of comment moderation same like in communism
Hi Alias,
Thanks for your kind words for those affected by the restructuring.
To paraphrase Mark Twain ‘The stories of my death have been greatly exaggerated’.
Mike Chambers, principal product manager in the Platform team has his own blog in which he’s clear that extensive development of Flash continue. You can check out the blog and comments at: http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2011/11/10/flash-professional-and-the-future/
To give you a flavour of what he says I’ve taken an extract from his article:
I have seen a couple of versions of it [the future of Flash Professional], but basically, the rumor is that the entire Flash Authoring team was laid off and that we are no longer developing Flash Professional.
Both of these rumors are false.
We are actively working on the next version of Flash Professional and have a long term commitment to it’s continued development ……………..
……. I can’t go into a ton of detail about all of the new features and improvements included in the next version of Flash Professional (we gave a sneak of some of them at FOTB Brighton last month), but some of the new features include:
• SpriteSheet export for both Starling and HTML5 / Canvas. Lee Brimelow has a sneak here.
• Support for packaging and exporting AIR applications for mobile that leverage native extensions.
• Mobile prototyping and simulation for AIR apps.
All the best
Mark A’Bear, UK Education Manager
Shantanu needs to get off his ass and FIX THIS NOW. This is a PR nightmare, effectively killing Flash in the minds of non-developers. This has all the makings of a Netflix or HP screw up.
Wish Steve would have been alive to see this and have a good chuckle. And a quote from Thoughts on Flash that put this “about face” into perspective… New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind. – Steve Jobs, April, 2010
What gross incompetence on the part of Adobe management. A transition from Flash to HTML5 makes perfect sense, however, as of today, the web is still better with Flash (mobile & desktop) and until today, developers who bet on Adobe could still make a good living on Flash.
Adobe could have laid out a roadmap for the transition that would have served Adobe’s interest as well as those of it’s customers, developers, designers, institutions that choose Flash and the public that enjoys it. Instead, all of these stakeholders are screwed because instead of smoothly managing a multi-year transition, Adobe pulls the plug after misleading it’s most loyal supporters a few weeks ago at their annual MAX conference.
I won’t have anything to do with Adobe until there is a senior management change. The future of Adobe is apparently a poorly run web stats company. Pity to see a once great company implode.