First, it was Apple that shunned Adobe Flash in favor of HTML5 and now even Microsoft is going down the same road. While demoing
Windows 8, Microsoft showed that its Internet Explorer 10 would be shipped sans Flash. According to Microsoft's building Windows 8 blog, this has been done to enable a "plug in free" environment for tablets.
The upcoming version of Internet Explorer would come in two forms which would be desktop app and Metro style app. While desktop version would support plugins and extensions, the Metro version would be using HTML5 instead of Flash. Toeing the Apple line, Microsoft also said that "Flash just doesn’t suit tablet browsing."
However, Adobe is not taking it lying down either. The company responded that it will make sure that Flash is available on all the platforms. Recently, Adobe came out with a ne2 program which helps developer in delivering Flash content to iOS devices. Adobe also stressed that Microsoft is not dumping Flash altogether. The company's platform general manger Danny Winokur wrote, "We expect Windows desktop to be extremely popular for years to come (including Windows 8 desktop) and that it will support Flash just fine, including rich web based games and premium videos that require Flash."
Adobe may go on consoling itself that not everything is lost as yet. But one thing is for the sure, after the latest rebuttal, the company needs to drastically redesign its products. As HTML5 is gaining grounds, Adobe needs to fire up its R&D engines and deliver a more energy efficient and better product to compete with it.
One thought on “Adobe Gets Cold Shoulder from Microsoft: Fires Back”
Not going to say that I don’t like this move…do you know how many times my browser crashes because of Flash? Although to be fair…I am still operating on Vista…