I really hope Adobe can make the transition to a standards-based world fast enough for them to remain a significant player. It is so hard for a mega-company to wean itself from the fat margins of a proprietary world they created.
They've already been making this transition for at least a year and probably planning it for even longer than that -- look at Muse, look at Edge.
Adobe doesn't give a crap about the Flash Player for its own sake, it was just a loss leader for their tools business, which anyone who has been paying attention would have noticed started leaning towards html and away from Flash a while ago now.
Since Adobe's fat margins were from authoring tools, presumably that opportunity still exists. AFAIK none of the existing HTML5 authoring tools are close to Flash in power.
When you own both the authoring tools and the runtime, the world is your oyster. Sure, HTML5 authoring tools suck today, and it will be a huge boon if Adobe leads the way to the promised land. But the barriers to entry for others to then go the same way is so much lower than in Adobe's previous environment.
Well, it will be very interesting ride over the next few years!
But the barriers to entry for others to then go the same way is so much lower than in Adobe's previous environment.
Can you not just target Flash Player? Seems like the barrier to entry is going to be the same as Adobe's in either case, except that with Flash, Adobe must also maintain Flash Player.
> 2. Swearing can help influence an audience. Light swearing, that is. (Go overboard and lose all credibility.)