"Pretty sure Adobe didn't care about 'open markets' until they got locked out of one." – Dave Winer
In ramping up its on-going PR blitz to try and sway public opinion in favor of forcing Apple to support its Flash Runtime model, Adobe is facing three fundamental challenges.
One, at this point it lacks great, un-bloated products that make their user base want to step up and defend them. Contrast this with Apple, where the term 'fanboy' speaks volumes about the dedication of its users.
Two, Adobe now lacks an execution culture that would have otherwise rendered the mobile flash topic moot by virtue of simply winning mobile market share before and/or during Apple's ascent with iPhone, iPod Touch and (now) iPad, a blockade that is now 85M devices strong.
After all, how long has Adobe been promising Mobile Flash, and how many devices is it actually running on out in the wild after all these years? In absence of a winning offense, all that Adobe has to roll out is a feeble defense? C'mon.
Three, Apple's embrace of native, governed platforms is paralleled by their embrace of HTML 5, WebKit and other best of breed open Web technologies, which renders huge chunks of Adobe's campaign murky at best.
Simply put, proprietary Flash hardly passes the open 'sniff test' that Adobe's leadership is trying to wordsmith around at a time when Apple is clearly playing a leadership position in pushing the open mobile web forward.
Adobe Co-Founder: Flash Fight Isn't Critical To Company Success
There is an axiom that it is hard to PREVENT something that you are simultaneously PREPARING for. Thus, it seems that in Adobe Co-Chairman and Co-Founder, Chuck Geschke, asserting that the "Flash Fight Isn’t Critical to Company Success" that he is effectively preparing his company for failure.
But this begs the question. Is this assertion even true? After all, Adobe has three core lines of business: Print Design Solutions (Photoshop), Web Design Solutions (Flash) and Document Management Solutions (Acrobat).
The print products are getting long in the tooth, and Adobe is widely perceived to have created bloatware and kept the price of products like Photoshop and Illustrator artificially high. This segment was once the core bedrock of the company's stellar reputation and strong relationship with its user base. These days, it is unquestionably less so.
By contrast, the company's position with respect to Acrobat, appears rock solid and highly profitable, with no real competition in the immediate horizon.
Hence, the pivot feels like Flash - exactly the reason a Co-Founder would dismiss its importance.
Why do I say it feels like the pivot? Desktop is slowly giving rise to Mobile, and in mobile, Flash is exceptionally weak (read: non-existent). If Adobe fails to secure a beachhead in Mobile via Flash (thanks to a combo of Apple's blockage, emergence of HTML 5 and Adobe's poor execution), it could easily see its Web design tools become less relevant, weakening synergy with its Print Design Solutions.
In such a scenario, Adobe starts to look like a one-trick pony, which isn't tantamount to death – just irrelevance.