In the age of open there are many people who would rather not use proprietary tools because they don't want their money going to evil corporations. Open is free. Let me offer this alternative point of view. To paraphrase Scott McNeeley, open is free as a puppy is free. Those of us who really have to do business using the web, where writing everything from scratch is not an option, need supported, maintained software and SaaS.
As the Web has "gone mobile", and there are increasingly more that screens involved in sharing rich digital content and experience, it made sense for Adobe to think about ways to emancipate Flash. To that end, the Open Screen Project was announced May 1, 2008. This is a project and many other industry leading companies that want to reliably deliver rich Web and video experiences live and on-demand across a variety of devices. Adobe has open access to Adobe Flash technology, accelerating the deployment of content and rich Internet applications (RIAs), including:
- Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications.
- Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
- Publishing the Adobe Flash® Cast™ protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
- Removing licensing fees - making future releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free
I've copied the list of current partners from the Open Screen Project website below. I know I could paste a link to that page. But then I wouldn't be reasonably sure that you had seen who is a part of this initiative:
AMD
Antena 3
Atlantic Records
ARM
BBC
Burda Digital Systems
CELL
Chunghwa Telecom
Cisco
Comcast
Condé Nast
Daum
Disney Interactive Media Group
EPIX
FOX Mobile Group
Freescale Semiconductor
HTC
Imagination Technologies
LG Electronics
Lionsgate
Marvell
MIPS Technologies
Motorola
Movial
MTV Networks
NBC Universal
Nokia
NTT DOCOMO
NVIDIA
OpenPeak
OpenTV
Palm
Paramount
PBS
Qualcomm
Research in Motion
RTL Interactive
Sagemcom
Samsung
Sonic Solutions
Sony Ericsson
ST-Ericsson
STMicroelectronics
STERN
Symbian Foundation
Teleca
Texas Instruments
The New York Times
Tomorrow Focus Technologies
Toshiba
Verizon Wireless
Vizio
Wind River
ZiiLABS
Look. What a surprise. No Apple. And that matters. But pretty clearly Apple really isn't the only game in town.
There is no doubt that Flash will continue to evolve and change. I'm fairly certain that the HTML5 specifications will making today's plug-in tools unnecessary and that Flash as we know it today won't be around for the ages. We many never see Flash on iPads or whatever they evolve into. But knowing how long it takes for enterprise adoption of innovation to occur, I think many of us are going to keep Flash in our toolkits for a while.
Thanks Ellen for taking the time to write such an informative article. I'll be sending those in my debate circles here!
I'm certainly not the band leader when it comes to Flash, but I am a fan and I do use it weekly.
Another important thing to note is this argument is about Flash and mobile devices, not Flash as an authoring tool how its contributions have evolved.
Web, mobile, RIA's, eLearning, etc. are only a few but lest we forget that Flash is HUGE in the animation industry. Specifically, broadcast animation. Anyone notice the popular eSurance (www.esurance.com) commercial? Yep! Broadcast animation totally done in Flash! Along with other tools, Flash is also used in many of the popular animated cartoons on TV today.
In the years to come Flash may evolve away from what we know it today, but I'm hard pressed to believe it will be around in some fashion for a very long time.
Posted by: Kevin Thorn | May 10, 2010 at 06:24 AM