Adobe CEO rejects Jobs complaints as 'smokescreen'
updated 05:20 pm EDT, Thu April 29, 2010
Apple accusations called unfounded, self-serving
Steve Jobs' latest complaints about Adobe and Flash are groundless, suggests Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Narayen argues for instance that Adobe content is indeed open, as it is available on multiple platforms and can be formatted for multiple devices. This may be what Apple is really concerned about, the CEO says.
The technology issues Jobs raises are, according to Narayen, "really a smokescreen," as evidenced by the fact that over 100 apps built with Adobe software were accepted into the App Store before Apple banned the use of cross-compilers. Current restrictions may be forcing just two workflows on developers. "When you resort to licensing language" to control development, says the executive, it has "nothing to do with technology."
Addressing Jobs' individual assertions, Narayen denies that Flash is the primary cause of Mac crashes, and instead contends that Mac OS X is at fault. He further rejects the claim of Flash being a battery drain as "patently false," and in fact proposes that "for every one of these accusations made there is proprietary lock-in" creating an obstacle.
Narayen comments that although he has met Jobs several times, the Apple CEO is ideologically distant. "We have different views of the world," the Adobe leader tells the Journal. "Our view of the world is multi-platform." He compliments the iPad as a "good first-generation device," but mentions that Adobe is working on "dozens" of tablet projects with other businesses. A multi-platform approach will "eventually prevail," Narayen concludes.
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Clueless
Wow, those were some weak, clueless answers by Narayen. Sure, Flash is an open standard. Right, Flash crashing on Macs is Apple's fault. And Flash isn't at all infamous for draining batteries on laptops and the few mobile devices that support Flash lite. In what universe is this guy fit to represent Adobe in a positive light? The smart answer would be to suggest that they're hard at work finding solutions to allow their customers to deploy on iPhones, such as exporting to HTML5 from their content creation software. Instead, we get this childish sour grapes that they can't get Flash on the iPhone. Cry me a river, Narayen. Apple doesn't want your universal software platform. Other platform vendors are probably not too hot about it either, even if they may not be so vocal about it. In any case, you're not showing us that you've developed any actual solutions here.