By Ben Bajarin
Microsoft’s battles over the years, with companies like Apple, Sun and most recently Google, are the stuff of software legend. The next competitor to visit the woodshed: Adobe.
Microsoft is the largest software company in the world and its products touch the lives of millions of consumers and businesspeople each day. Despite its dominance, Microsoft still faces very tough software competition from many different directions.
For example, just about everyone knows about the quarter-century long software war between Microsoft and Apple in personal computers – which has now found a new battlefield in mobile devices.
But another software war in which Microsoft is enmeshed is much less known – yet may be just as important: between Microsoft and Adobe in a duel to become the dominant Internet software platform.
It’s easy to forget that, like Microsoft, Adobe also touches millions of people daily – though to a lesser degree . . .except for one incredible product: Flash. Flash software has been the industry standard for glossy/multimedia/interactive web experiences for about a decade now and it continues to gain developer attention and mind share. It is the Windows of multimedia. And Microsoft wants that market.
Adobe has several tricks up its sleeve to maintain its lead. For example, the underlying architecture for Flash is called “Flex” and it runs in the Adobe Integrated Runtime Environment or “AIR.” This combination is crucial for Adobe because it is likely that someday all computing applications and processor heavy lifting will migrate from the local desktop to the Internet. When that happens, the world will need a standard Internet platform to run on — and right now, Adobe AIR is the leading contender.
But now Microsoft is making its move.
Obviously, with Internet Explorer, Microsoft already owns the main consumer conduit to the web. But the world is changing fast, and Microsoft is racing to adapt. In particular, in the world of software, power has shifted to the developers – and they care less about the plumbing than the tools. Microsoft understands this and has developed its own proprietary programming environment, its Flash Killer, called Silverlight.
Being Microsoft, Silverlight has already experiencing delays. Nevertheless, so great is the anticipation for this platform that new third party applications are already showing up on-line. That means that when Silverlight does finally see the light of day, it will arrive already supported by numerous applications. Even better, just because it is Microsoft, the company will escape the biggest challenge facing most such new technologies – getting the platform out there to a critical mass of users. When you are Microsoft, and can simply push the install out over the Web to a billion users as a Windows update or a Vista built-in. It’s that built-in advantage that still makes competitors tremble.
But even if Microsoft can force much of the world (remember its past anti-trust troubles?) to adopt Silverlight, it can’t make users – or, more important, developers – love it. The real challenge facing Microsoft is how to get the best developers on board developing some of the best new web software on the Internet. And to do that Microsoft not only must show that Silverlight can be as innovative as anything produced by the much-more technically respected Adobe, but that it is committed to continuously upgrading Silverlight to keep it at the cutting edge.
But Adobe has always prided itself on its technical acumen . . .and it is hardly standing still waiting for Microsoft to catch up. Adobe is already planning to respond to the Silverlight challenge with ‘Flash 10’, which will support the hot new Open GL programming language, which is used to create rich 3D environments PC for video games. Adobe hopes that Flash 10 will attract software developers who want to explore so-called visual computing, i.e., highly visual and multimedia computer interfaces. If the history of Adobe Flash is any indication, Flash 10 is likely to spark a new wave of software innovation.
In other words, we have the classic duel that has defined the electronics industry for more than two decades: Microsoft versus the Innovator. The Innovator can win (or at least stay alive) as long as it can stay far enough ahead and capture the imaginations of the creative types. Microsoft can win if by leveraging its position to capture dominant market share, staying within range of the Innovator, and wait for its opponent to stumble.
Who will win this Internet Platform War? It’s too early to tell. But it will be a close-run thing: Microsoft isn’t the company it used to be, and Adobe isn’t some newcomer like Netscape. Both companies have the depth and the cash to fight this one for a long time. . .and that’ll likely be good news for the rest of us.
Ben Bajarin is Director of the Consumer Technology Practice for Creative Strategies, Inc. in Silicon Valley.
Digg This
del.icio.us
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
31 Comments
1. Pajamas Media » Next Clash of Titans: Microsoft vs. Adobe:[...] Read the entire article here… [...]
Jul 7, 2008 - 9:33 am 2. MikeT:A few inaccuracies:
1) Flash is the foundation of Flex, not the other way around. Anything built with the Flash SDK or Flash Builder runs on top of the Flash runtime.
2) OpenGL is neither new, nor is it a language. It stands for Open Graphics Library. It’s a C-based library that can be used from numerous languages, but it’s just a library.
Jul 7, 2008 - 10:44 am 3. Fidel, MD:and because it’s microsoft, whatever is released, whenever it is released, will be less than the products its supposed to replace.
Jul 7, 2008 - 10:44 am 4. Emmott On Technology » PJM Tech: Edgelings » Next Clash of Titans: Microsoft vs. Adobe:[...] PJM Tech: Edgelings » Next Clash of Titans: Microsoft vs. Adobe. [...]
Jul 7, 2008 - 10:50 am 5. RJ:Actually, there are a lot of developers quite excited about Silverlight – precisely because it is a new platform, built from the ground up, for web-based applications. It’s more flexible and, in my experience, faster. Flash 10 may best it, but Silverlight is currently a better technology, well built in it’s own right and worthy of a good look…
Jul 7, 2008 - 11:09 am 6. Pete Drum:Netscape a newcomer?
Jul 7, 2008 - 11:10 am 7. Stone Dead Parrot » Microsoft vs. Adobe…:[...] an interesting article over at Pajamas Media on the coming battle between Microsoft and Adobe on the web: It’s easy to forget that, like Microsoft, Adobe also touches millions of people daily [...]
Jul 7, 2008 - 11:21 am 8. ZEITGEIST:[...] MICROSOFT VS. ADOBE: The next big clash of tech titans? [...]
Jul 7, 2008 - 11:28 am 9. Mr L:Fidel: On the other hand the competition is bloatware king Adobe, the same people who somehow managed to turn a relatively stable and sane Macromedia product into the #1 source of browser crashes and ‘upgraded’ ActionScript into something that’s universally less fault-tolerant and less compact.
Jul 7, 2008 - 11:29 am 10. ern:Well, since Silverlight and Flash can coexist on any desktop, this nullifies any advantage Microsoft might have through Windows. The real battle will not be on individual desktops (viewers for Silverlight and Flash are free, after all) but for designers and programmers. And since Adobe already has a lock on designers, I have a difficult time imagining that Microsoft can really break into this market. No designer can really be without Photoshop–and the bundles Adobe provides for Web design all include Flash. This was partly how InDesign dethroned Quark. It’s a much better advantage than Microsoft’s dominance with Windows.
The two will probably exist side-by-side for the foreseeable future. That is, unless one provides significantly better features or ease of development, which I think is unlikely.
Jul 7, 2008 - 11:30 am 11. Dufus:Silverlight’s focuses more in the video area. Flash video (FLV) is the basic building block of most of the video sites such as YouTube. Microsoft would like to recapture the market for media servers. The rest of Silverlight’s functionality is currently threadbare…
Jul 7, 2008 - 11:58 am 12. Dan:Silverlight is a very good technology, and it’s very similar to WPF, which is the technology Microsoft is promoting for the next generation of Windows applications. This means that people who build desktop applications and games will be able to port them over to web versions very easily. This will be a big advantage for Microsoft. Their tools for working with Silverlight – Expression Design and Expression Blend, are pretty good. I’ve used Adobe products for years, and I’m currently developing WPF apps using Visual Studio, Expression Design and Expression Blend, and I’m really enjoying it. Microsoft has a winning technology here.
Jul 7, 2008 - 12:39 pm 13. Wildmonk:I’ve developed under C, C++, Delphi, C#, Flash (with ActionScript) and quite a few other platforms. As far as I can see, this battle is really Microsoft’s to lose since ActionScript is one of the great technical abominations of the last decade. Truly, I’d crawl over broken glass to avoid using it for anything more than triggering roll-overs and such. Oddly enough, basic Flash is pretty easy. What appears to have happened is that the Adobe designers just got in way over their heads when they tried to add a “programming language” to the Flash roots. For all of its problems, Microsoft does at least have a clue as to what makes for a capable development environment.
Jul 7, 2008 - 12:42 pm 14. Bill Sheldon:Actually Silverlight 1.0 was released, they are now working on Silverlight 2.0 and to the best of my knowledge it isn’t late. BTW, follow my link to check out a couple of silverlight applications, including an interactive map for the San Diego Zoo.
Jul 7, 2008 - 1:06 pm 15. Geoff:I, for one, am rooting against both but really rooting against Microsoft. I want an open platform that can be targeted by many tools.
Adobe has its share of problems. But Microsoft just needs to be stopped. They don’t want to help us. Internet Explorer would still be languishing if it weren’t for Firefox.
Jul 7, 2008 - 1:41 pm 16. Joe Bonforte:Geoff, tell me again why Flash/Flex are considered more open than Silverlight?
Or are you just pining for some mythical open platform for the next generation of web UI to come floating along out of nothingness?
This “Microsoft just needs to be stopped” mentality is just silly. Yes, they need competition, and IE did languish until Explorer came along. And they respond powerfully to competition, often straining to produce something better than they had before. But that does not translate to them being evil as so many anti-MS bigots seem to think.
Jul 7, 2008 - 2:29 pm 17. Dresden:What about the increasingly likely possibility that both Adobe’s Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight are already technologies of the past? They could both lose to a combination of open source technologies like SproutCore, Apple’s cross-platform Cocoa development environment and Google’s web standards-based approach.
The bloated, proprietary Rich Internet Application model hasn’t caught on so well for Adobe and there are no good reasons it’ll be more successful for Microsoft. The days of them being able to exploit their OS monopoly for dominance elsewhere are over.
Jul 7, 2008 - 2:39 pm 18. James:Well… KCCI (Des Moines, IA’s CBS affiliate) has moved its web site’s weather page over to Silverlight–thus making it unusable for me as a Linux user. I’m hoping that Silverlight will have all the success of Microsoft Bob.
Jul 7, 2008 - 3:00 pm 19. Fidel, MD:Mr. L, the reason the browsers crash is microsofts faulty implementation of standards….after all, they’re MICROSOFT.
My Linux and Apple machines work quite well. My Vista machines work so well I’m about to upgrade them to XP.
Jul 7, 2008 - 3:53 pm 20. His Name Was Steve Barktdo:“But that does not translate to them being evil as so many anti-MS bigots seem to think.”
No, it’s their history of hiring sock puppets to lie about competitors products, using their OS monopoly to break competitors’ applications, and blackmailing OEMs to keep them from offering good alternatives and shoehorn Windows in that makes them evil.
Jul 7, 2008 - 10:32 pm 21. epobirs:James, the Linux version of Silverlight is already well under way.
http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
The article writer failed to note that Microsoft cannot, due to governmental interference, force Silverlight on the world via Windows Update. It is and remains an optional item.
Jul 8, 2008 - 12:43 am 22. Alan:Both companies are known for releasing bloated, inefficient software. The web is the last place where lean, efficient, code really makes a difference. You couldn’t pick to worse companies to compete over this if you trued. Consumers simply can’t win in a matchup between these two behemoths, unless the competition is so fierce that one or both companies are able to completely purge their old corporate culture.
Jul 8, 2008 - 3:57 am 23. Bobby Mcgill:James made a great point. Microsoft being Microsoft and wanting to micro-manage the computing world in a way that it sees fit, will not support Linux with the new Silverlight.
Jul 8, 2008 - 5:14 am 24. Smart Mobs » Blog Archive » Clashing titans: Microsoft vs. Adobe:[...] and Adobe [are] in a duel to become the dominant Internet software platform,” writes Ben Bajarin in PajamasMedia. Here is the essence of the clash that is heating up between Microsoft and yet another titan: [...]
Jul 8, 2008 - 11:38 am 25. Markoh:I think you have to consider the embedded world, like cell phones, in this equation. Flash is gaining ground quickly in that world, and I think you’d have to say that linux is the de-facto standard, or inevitably will be before long. Going forward, this embedded world is arguably the more important market, as the desktop has pretty much peaked. By ‘peaked’ I mean that the desktop OS already does everything anybody wants it to do, which is a large part of why Vista was greeted with such a worldwide yawn.
Jul 8, 2008 - 12:00 pm 26. Steve:I get so tired of this “Microsoft is the devil.” attitude. It’s old, and boys and girls, to the victor go the spoils. At one time Apple had a larger market share, but due to greed, Microsoft, out marketed/distributed them. Now Apple has gone back up to a 5% market share.
It takes money to develop reliable products. Get over it, or do it yourselves.
Jul 8, 2008 - 2:10 pm 27. Сивата еминенција на интернетот: Adobe | К О М У Н И К А Ц И И:[...] mind share. It is the Windows of multimedia. And Microsoft wants that market…(Ben Bajarin, Next Clash of Titans). Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
Jul 8, 2008 - 3:36 pm 28. Geoff:I didn’t say Adobe was more open. I hope they both fail.
Microsoft has earned their ill-will. I don’t want them controlling standards on the Internet. I just don’t trust them. And I recently interviewed with them. I don’t hate them enough not to take their money.
Heck, I use SQL Server frequently. They do good stuff. But I don’t want them to dominate.
Jul 8, 2008 - 5:30 pm 29. Kontra:Another company, Apple, is taking a different tack to RIA runtimes, as I explained here:
Runtime wars (2): Apple’s answer to Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX
Jul 9, 2008 - 12:18 am 30. Vince P - Chicago:http://counternotions.com/2007/11/15/apple-runtime-answer-2/
I hope Geoff fails at what he does.
Jul 9, 2008 - 1:22 am 31. News » Clashing titans: Microsoft vs. Adobe:[...] and Adobe [are] in a duel to become the dominant Internet software platform,” writes Ben Bajarin in PajamasMedia. Here is the essence of the clash that is heating up between Microsoft and yet another titan: [...]
Jul 13, 2008 - 3:15 am