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Will Flex/Flash make Adobe richer?

« H E Yakov Fain :: email
posted Friday, 10 November 2006

As any software developer I enjoy working with cool components, and Flex is definitely cool.  I also know that Adobe is not a philanthropy firm – they need to make money to stay in business.
 
Most of Adobe presenters never forget to remind that Flash is ubiquitous (I did not hear this word before applied to any software).  There is another ubiquitous product  - Microsoft Windows. From the business point of view, the difference between the two is that MS sells Windows, while Flash Player is free, which is great for everyone but Adobe.

There is another company, Sun Microsystems  that has ubiquitous free software called Java.  While Sun earns its revenues from installing Java in mobile devices, the rest of Java is primarily used to sell servers where free JVMs  run. This does not apply to  Flex as Adobe does not sell hardware. It does sell professional services. So I assume Flex can bring more consulting gigs to Adobe, but lots of other independent vendors will compete in this space as well.

Almost forgot about yet another ubiquitous free software: Google search. But these guys sell advertisements.

What would you feel if a couple of guys took the free tool that you’ve created and in no time made $1.65B? You do not have to answer. Adobe can be proud of Flash Player… Recently, four senior people including the primary co-creators and architects of Flash Player and  ActionScript left Adobe and created a startup… Why? Adobe is a profitable company, Flex is  cool, Flash Player 9 is hot, Apollo is coming soon.  I can only guess that they also want to capitalize on these great free tools, and it’s easier  to do outside of the firm.

Selling Flex Data Services licenses and professional services will bring in some cash, you can add some peanuts from Charting components,  Flex Builder and training. Adobe has excellent software engineers in  Flex team. But it’s an open market, and in a year or sooner, other firms will come up with open source or cheaper alternatives  to FDS, charting or Flex IDE.  What's left? The mobile devices.

So does ubiquity spells cash? Why CFO of the company resigns? Flash Lite to the rescue!

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comments (3)


1. JeffS left...
Friday, 10 November 2006 6:23 pm

Because Flash is so badly misused on websites for lame intros and hellishly annoying ads, and the fact that Flash videos/ads/games/animations of even the smallest size can cause the the browser to eat up as much as 80% of the computers CPU, many, many, many, many people absolutely abhore Flash with every fabric of their being.

Yes, Flash installation is pretty much ubiquitous. Yes, you can use Flash to do some cool stuff. Yes, Flex is a greet RAD tool for RIA.

But because Flash is so badly misused, and badly overused, throughout the internet, it might be held back in terms of this great, ubiquitous RIA platform, due to people being fed up with Flash over/misuse.

In fact, I'm writing this post in Firefox, after having freshly installed the Mozilla FlashBlocker. So instead of the multitude of useless, horrifically annoying ads and movies littering the hell out of Java Developers Journal, the site becomes much more pleasant and tolerable. All that Flash crap simply has a big "F" (Flash Logo) on it, and if I want to view it, all I have to do is click on the "F". It's awesome. BTW - even with all that annoying Flash littering it, I kept coming back to JDJ for some pretty good content, including your blog. ;-) But now the site is much more pleasant with FlashBlocker.

Anyway, the point is, I think people's perception of Flash is probably already permanently poisoned, due to misuse and overuse.


2. Yakov Fain left...
Saturday, 11 November 2006 8:17 am

Agree,

Flash is misused in many cases and lots of people think of it as some annoying part of Internet life, which in the best case scenario comes with the Skip Intro button... And this is the biggest challenge for Adobe with Flex - how to change the perception of developers so they can look at it as a VM that can run the bytecode of a business application. Won't be easy. This week MS released .Net 3.0, which comes with Windows Presentation Foundation - Adobe Flex competitor. While WPF is behind at this point, they have a big advantage - they do not have to convince people that this is a tool for developers - it's a given.

As to utilization of resources and speed, Flash Player 9 is much better.


3. JeffS left...
Monday, 13 November 2006 5:37 pm

Another thing that might hold back Flex/Flash as an ubiquitous RIA platform for business apps is the fact that the Flash DE, and FlexBuilder, are so darned expensive. Yes, you can get the Flex sdk for free. But there are not any good free or inexpensive Flash/Flex IDE's or tools that I've seen. Flash.net is decent, but not great. OpenLazslo is good, but it's not a full IDE, and not Flex.

Contrast that with Java - there's both NetBeans (with Matisse) and Eclipse RCP. Both 100% free, and both nothing short of spectacular as tools. This is huge for developers - to get something so good that helps so much in getting things done, for free, is irresistible. And once Java 6 is out (which improves LnF, fonts, speed, and reduces memory consumption), and coupled with the huge improvements already made with Swing, and Eclipse RCP, and Java as a rich client is becoming much more attractive.

Developers will always flock to great tools which they can easily get their hands on, with out having to pay an arm and a leg.

Again, Flex is cool. But it has some market reality based obstacles to overcome. Flash player is free. Adobe reader is free. But the IDE's, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flexbuilder, etc, are all very very expensive. They have to be, because they are a major part of Adobe's business model. If Adobe releases these products for free, or greatly reduces the price, they'll have to come up with other revenue streams real quick. Thus, it's probably not going to happen.

That will prevent Flex, and the upcoming Apollo, from reaching their potential as ubiquitous RIA platforms.