SAN JOSE, Calif. — Adobe’s Flash multimedia platform
will no longer be developed for mobile devices, the San Jose software
company announced Wednesday, years after Apple Inc. and co-founder Steve
Jobs refused to use the technology on their mobile devices.
Flash
was one of the most important platforms in the early days of the Web,
allowing for richer video and gaming experiences. But when Apple sparked
the mobile-device revolution with the introduction of the iPhone in
2007, it refused to offer Flash compatibility.
Jobs
famously attacked Flash in an April 2010 online screed, concluding that
“Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and
doesn’t support touch-based devices.”
Adobe
eventually did bring a Flash player to mobile devices in 2010, but it
has failed to catch on and HTML5 has become more common for programmers
and app developers.
On Wednesday, Adobe admitted defeat.
“HTML5
is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases
exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and
deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms,” Danny
Winokur, vice president of interactive development at Adobe, said in the
blog post announcing Adobe’s decision.
Adobe said
it will focus on HTML5 with technology and resources, and “innovate
with Flash where it can have most impact for the industry, including
advanced gaming and premium video.”
The death of
Flash for mobile — the hottest current sector in technology — could have
been a factor in Adobe’s decision Tuesday to eliminate 750 jobs, about
7.5 percent of its global workforce. Adobe said if it was restructuring
to focus on “digital media and digital marketing.”
Adobe also announced Wednesday that it was lowering projections for fourth-quarter and fiscal-year 2012 earnings.
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