Adobe makes future plans

ADOBE IS A firm trying to find itself somewhere between local computing and the cloud according to Adobe CTO, Kevin Lynch, speaking before his keynote speech, due to be delivered today at the Firm’s Max conference in San Francisco.

"It's a balance of the client and cloud together that makes for the most effective applications and the best development," Lynch told Cnet, giving a sneak peak at Adobe’s future strategy. Of course, it will be Adobe’s most famous acquisition (Macromedia) and product (Flash) which will probably get most attention at the event, but Adobe is keen to show it can be a lot more than a one-trick pony.

For starters, Max will be the arena for Adobe to show off Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), a cross-platform runtime environment for building rich Internet applications using Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, or Ajax. Adobe is planning to release AIR version 1.5 at Max, boasting its use of Flash Player 10 and 3D graphics, better text handling, the ability to mix different audio signals, a higher-performance JavaScript engine and the ability to act as a desktop application, taking advantage of local computing power.

Adobe reckons that AIR’s ability to run Flash programmes whilst also having a built-in engine for showing Web pages and running JavaScript programmes for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux makes it a formidable competitor to Microsoft’s Windows and a useful tool in making a leap towards the cloud.

It’s not the first time Adobe has made moves in this direction, either. A couple of months ago, the firm launched its popular Photoshop programme as an online service, allowing users to upload, edit, and share photos using Flash for the processing-intensive editing on users’ own computers rather than Adobe's servers. This has helped Adobe keep costs down, according to Lynch.

But cross-platform runtime environments sometimes have difficulties taking off, as Sun Microsystems learned when it spent 13 years trying to get its Java to catch on cross-platform. It still has only limited success and trouble breaking into mainstream computing applications.

A major challenge Adobe faces is getting people to install AIR in the first place, something which may prove difficult as people are not usually keen to install foundations with few applications, and programmers are less than keen to write apps for foundations which don’t have a high install rate. But Adobe has shown itself capable in the past, especially with its mass distribution of Flash through Macromedia and its PDF reader plug-in software.

Still, Lynch’s goal of having AIR running on 100 million machines by its first anniversary in February 2009, is mighty ambitious. But Lynch doesn’t seem concerned, noting one million copies of the AIR software development kit have already been downloaded and saying "It looks like we're on track right now".

Also on the Max agenda will be Adobe’s Alchemy - allowing programmes written in C or C++ run inside Flash Player - "Gumbo" a new version of Adobe Flex Builder and "Thermo," formally Flash Catalyst - to let people quickly create an application's interface in another application and then add the interactive instructions to the interface elements.

Adobe will also apparently be showing off a smartphone running Flash Player 10 at the show, although Lynch doesn’t mind admitting he’s disappointed there’s still no Flash available on Apple's Iphone. Adobe has purportedly finished making a software development kit so people can make Flash apps for the Iphone, but Lynch notes “to release software on the Iphone requires Apple's agreement".

As for competitors, Adobe knows Microsoft’s Silverlight is snapping at its heels, and counts a big advantage over Flash and Flex in having compatibility with the .Net programming environment and language.

But this might help remind Adobe that whilst its sometimes good to have your head in the clouds, it’s also important to keep your feet on the ground. µ

L'Inq
CNET