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Technical Reasons: Because Flash is more than an animation platform. Entire applications have been developed in ActionScript (the platform's main language), sig
by jordhy 10y ago
Technical Reasons: Because Flash is more than an animation platform. Entire applications have been developed in ActionScript (the platform's main language), significant piping was deployed (mainly in the early 2000s) in Adobe/Macromedia-based solutions where Flash played a key role as a connector/target/control interface.
In other words, for many important websites, Flash was the JavaScript of today (far reaching, with critical appearances in both the back and front-end).
Business Reasons: Adobe has had a rough decade. The Macromedia acquisition was a red pill (IMHO) for many at the company. The company has been dramatically slow in adapting to a new Web. Several major projects have failed or under-performed. All and all, Adobe has bigger fish to fry than to procure their developer base of a free/low-cost migration solution.
Other Reasons: 1)The nature of proprietary software - a lot has been written about this so feel free to look it up on the Web but basically its hard to just discontinue software without facing several non-trivial legal challenges. 2) The Steve Jobs Effect - or the curse of having a major figure accelerate the demise of a product that should have evolved into an open standard. 3) The Adobe Coldfusion Effect - Macromedia/Adobe has a product called ColdFusion Server that used Flash technology A LOT to differentiate itself, however the transition strategy adopted by Adobe didn't immediately discontinue Flash support for ColdFusion generated reports (for example) and such a direction made developers less likely to invest in a quicker migration to HTML5.
I feel your pain and, at this point, would also like to see Adobe pull the plug once and for all. But we live in a complicated world, for better or worse.
- dispose13432 10y ago>or the curse of having a major figure accelerate the demise of a product that should have evolved into an open standard. Well, they always had the option. It's not like they were working on open-sourcing it. It's an Open standard like Windows API EXEs are, you get half-support from Wine, but no guarantees.
- aub3bhat 10y agoAdobe has had a rough decade? Really, I always assumed that Adobe successfully mitigated all the revenue risk by selling recurring Creative Studio/Cloud licenses, and that Flash was not a big chunk of revenue anymore. I remember Steve Jobs planning to kill Adobe or at least news blog reporting such intentions.[0] Adobe stock has done pretty well over last half a decade even when compared with Google.[1] [0] http://www.businessinsider.com/the-real-reason-steve-jobs-wants-to-kill-adobe-2010-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-real-reason-steve-jobs-wa... [1] https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AADBE%2CGOOGL&ei=2jRWWIHbNdibee3Wn6AL https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AADBE%2CGOOGL&ei=2j...
- bluebknight 10y agoWhat I found ironic was, I had to enable flash player to see your Google finance link. I guess Flash is still alive in many places.
- cm2187 10y agoI don't have the feeling that google finance is live and kicking. I think it's one of those product that will disappear soon. There are lots of broken feeds like: http://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGLDI&ei=Tk1WWKnmH4iUUt3vh6AL http://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGLDI&ei=Tk1WWKnmH... I reported some but they did nothing about it.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> google finance is live and kicking I work in finance. It's a last resort. It should be front page, but it was ignored for too many years. I think I see it once or twice a year, now.
- Spooky23 10y agoWhomever was scratching a personal itch with Google Finance at Google is probably rich enough to have people worry about such things now. I end up using my broker for charting, as most of the free ones suck.
- csomar 10y ago
- jlarocco 10y ago> Adobe has had a rough decade. Not true at all - their share price has more than tripled in the last decade [0]. Web development was never a big part of Adobe's business. They were trying, because it's similar to their other product areas, but they never got a big foothold, except Flash. They still make a ton of popular software (Photoshop/Lightroom, Premiere, Acrobat, Illustator, After Effects, ...), and most of it is selling better than ever. [0] https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=adbe https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=adbe
- jordhy 10y agoMaybe we shouln't equate the stock price of a company with that very company. But I append some links so further my POV: Flash In The Pan: Historical Lessons Of Adobe's Macromedia Acquisition https://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/flash-in-the-pan-historical-lessons-of-adobes-macromedia-acquisition/ https://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/flash-in-the-pa... Adobe accused of software monopoly (not by Apple) http://www.techworld.com/news/apps/adobe-accused-of-software-monopoly-not-by-apple-3222555/ http://www.techworld.com/news/apps/adobe-accused-of-software... The Real Story Behind Adobe’s Failed Mobile Strategy http://www.businessinsider.com/the-underlying-story-behind-adobes-failed-mobile-strategy-2010-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-underlying-story-behind-a... Adobe recovering from massive Creative Cloud failure (one of several) https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/16/adobe-recovering-from-massive-creative-cloud-failure/ https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/16/adobe-recovering-from-ma... The Agonizingly Slow Decline Of Adobe Flash Player https://www.fastcompany.com/3049920/tech-forecast/the-agonizingly-slow-decline-of-adobe-flash-player https://www.fastcompany.com/3049920/tech-forecast/the-agoniz... And, finally, some commentary on the nature of Adobe's stock rise: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2014/02/28/why-is-adobe-stock-up-so-much/#fb04ef74bb00 http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2014/02/28/why-is-ado... Adobe Systems Inc. May Be Wildly Overvalued http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/29/adobe-systems-inc-may-be-wildly-overvalued.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/29/adobe-syste... Adobe Is Extremely Overvalued http://seekingalpha.com/article/2675425-adobe-is-extremely-overvalued http://seekingalpha.com/article/2675425-adobe-is-extremely-o... Adobe: Overvalued Despite Improving Profitability http://seekingalpha.com/article/3989440-adobe-overvalued-despite-improving-profitability http://seekingalpha.com/article/3989440-adobe-overvalued-des... But to be clearer, let's rephrase and say that "Adobe the company has had a rough decade".
- chmaynard 10y agoLots of interesting and useful comments in this thread. It looks to me like Flash will remain a nightmare for Adobe until the company gives in and releases their source code to the public. Once that happens, their developers can get involved in supporting it and keeping it secure.
- nkkollaw 10y agoI don't get it, aren't there free (and open source) Flash players besides Adobe's? Google Chrome doesn't use Adobe's Flash player, for instance, but a player called PepperFlash. Adobe could very well discontinue developing their player, and just tell people to use an open source version. They could make it a marketing stunt by open sourcing their player for user freedom or some stuff like that.
- jhasse 10y agoI think PepperFlash is a fork of Adobe's Flash, just with a different interface for the browser.
- robinduckett 10y agoPepperFlash is made by Adobe, and is closed source, it's called "PepperFlash" because it uses a different set of APIs, "PPAPI" vs "NPAPI". It's available to download from their "other versions" download page, so I'm wondering what your point is?
- future1979 10y agoPepper and Nacl seem to have an uncertain. I read that Google unstaffed some teams. Anyone familiar with what is going on?
- nkkollaw 10y agoAh, got it. My bad, I thought it was a completely different implementation.
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- icebraining 10y agoThere are only two open source players AFAIK; Shumway, which has been discontinued, and GNU Gnash, which despite the heroic efforts still doesn't support all features.
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- rkachowski 10y ago> The Macromedia acquisition was a red pill (IMHO) for many at the company slightly OT: what does "red pill" mean here in this context? A wake up call? Adobe employees chose to enter the real world? I'm thinking a matrix reference but I find it hard to discern the sentiment behind it.
- JohnJamesRambo 10y ago"The red pill and its opposite, the blue pill, are popular culture symbols representing the choice between embracing the sometimes painful truth of reality (red pill) and the blissful ignorance of illusion (blue pill). The terms, popularized in science fiction culture, are derived from the 1999 film The Matrix."
- user5994461 10y agoThere is at least one MMORPG done in flash, that's just to say how much can be done in flash.
- grenoire 10y agoThere are MMORPGs created in Visual Basic. I can't say that it's a great language or platform metric, hah.
- user5994461 10y agoJust because a tool is not great doesn't mean you can't enjoy the awesome things done with it.
- shostack 10y agoAnd I wonder how much revenue they get off the McAfee installs they try to get people to download from the Flash update page...