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Flash of Brilliance or Flash in the Pan?

Adobe Flash is the de facto standard for web video and interactive experience today. Flash accounts for 75% of online video. The Flash plug-in is installed on well over 90% of browsers. Millions of games and sites are built with Flash. Yet, despite Adobe's market share, Flash is a standard in jeopardy. For Adobe, the "Barbarians are at the gates" as it defends simultaneously against three tectonic threats.

Mobile Web

When it comes to mobile Flash was not invited to the dance. Flash does not work on the Apple iPhone or Apple iPad. This is by design. Steve Jobs has reportedly said the Flash is too buggy and crash prone to let on the iPhone. He has also gone farther, calling Adobe "lazy." Of course another concern for Jobs may be the slew of free Flash games and media content on the web that cannot be monetized or controlled by Apple. Or if Flash were a viable option for iPhone development, there would be a lot less developers writing apps in Apple's Objective C toolkit. Adobe is fighting back by adding support for iPhone application development in Flash, but without device support it is hard to imagine this going very far.

HTML5

To make matters worse for Adobe the next standard for HTML, version 5, aims to replace the Rich Internet Application (RIA) experience delivered by Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight with free standards-based HTML. HTML5 includes new < video > and < audio > mark-up elements that will automatically render media content without needing a plug-in or a license to the Adobe Creative Suite software.

This week Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch fired back saying HTML5 Will roll the Web "Back To The Dark Ages Of Video." His point is well taken. Browser incompatibilities will add unmanageable complexity to media distribution. But HTML5 is advancing very quickly. It may also be no surprise that the standard is being written by Google and Apple, and when they put their full-weight behind HTML5 it will gain much broader adoption. One unlikely ally for Adobe is the Mozilla Foundation. They are not onboard with in-line media elements for Firefox, albeit for very different reasons having to do with commerical video codecs.

AJAX

The quiet threat to Flash is AJAX. I rarely hear this discussed in the media, but I see it all of the time in our client experience at Ingeniux. Many of our customers use Flash-based "Value Propositions" on the home page. These are generally slide shows that rotate images and messages. In the last year we have seen a large spike in customers who no longer want to use Flash to deliver slide shows, but rather mark them up in HTML and JavaScript. With today's JavaScript libraries the same immersive customer experience can be delivered, but in a way that is easier to maintain and update, works on all browsers, is inherently accessible and search engine optimized, and will display on mobile browsers.

Likewise, AJAX has usurped Silverlight and Flash / Flex for application development. At Ingeniux we use the DoJo AJAX libraries for our client development. If you have ever used one of our clients you would be surprised it is HTML. The Ingeniux CMS Universal supports drag-and-drop, context menus, and other rich client features that make the client feel like a desktop software application.

So what is the future of Flash? I do not think Flash is going away tomorrow, or in the next few years. Personally, I am a fan of Adobe and hope to see them as a vibrant player in the web landscape. More than ever we need balance and competition in Internet platforms. But I do think that Flash has peaked and will gradually be replaced by more open technologies. The real question to ask is, what is the best option for your site? If you are looking to add immersive web experiences or media to your website it is worth investigating other options based on your requirements, audiences, and target devices. Flash is only one of many options today.

I would also love to hear your thoughts on the future of Flash. Feel free to add your comments and thoughts below.

Posted by David Hillis at 8:33 pm