By Robert McMillan
Flash, the popular software from Adobe Systems Inc., once
brought Web to life, endowing pages formerly occupied by static
text and photos with video clips and animated cartoons. Last week
the program, criticized for years as a security risk and a drag on
online progress, became a top contender for the technology dead
pool.
Facebook Inc. chief security officer Alex Stamos last week
offered Adobe some unsolicited advice: Stop trying to fix Flash and
kill it outright. Google Inc. and Mozilla Corp. followed suit,
temporarily disabling Flash in their Web browsers after it was
revealed that hackers were exploiting a bug in the software. The
tech giants' offensive was the latest chapter in Flash's downfall
and an illustration of how mobile devices-- Apple Inc.'s iPhone in
particular --are rapidly reshaping the business landscape.
Adobe continues to distribute Flash and regular security updates
for users to download. If consumers remain concerned about it being
a drag on their system or a security risk, they can uninstall it
from their computers, though they might then not be able to view
some video and interactive content.
But Danny Brian, vice president of research at Gartner Inc.,
views Flash's demise as inevitable. "The writing has been on the
wall for at least a year or two," he said.
Introduced in the early 1990s as an easy-to-use digital
animation program, Flash went on to be included on virtually every
computer shipped. It was the strategic cornerstone of Adobe's $3.4
billion purchase of Macromedia Inc. in 2005. YouTube founded its
streaming video operation on the technology, and Netflix used it as
well. Advertising agencies championed it as a way to produce
eye-catching online ads. It seemed as though Flash was a permanent
fixture of the Web.
Then, in 2007, along came the iPhone. Adobe engineers embraced
it immediately. "Everyone who was in the organization was carrying
an iPhone," said Carlos Icaza, an Adobe senior engineer at the
time.
But Apple's smartphone also troubled Mr. Icaza, who was in
charge of Flash development on mobile phones. Flash had become
bloated over the years and required lots of computing power to run.
That wasn't a big deal on PCs, but on mobile phones, with their
limited battery life, it was a major problem, and Apple had opted
not to support the technology.
Flash needed a major rewrite to work on the iPhone, but Mr.
Icaza couldn't get his superiors to allocate the necessary
resources.
"For me, it was, 'What the hell is going on? We have this
amazing device that is going to change the world and everybody
knows it,'" he said in an interview. "Nobody at the organization
was trying to make Flash work on this device."
Other former Adobe executives interviewed for this article said
Adobe wanted very much to license Flash on the iPhone but couldn't
come to terms with Apple.
With the advent of the iPad tablet in April 2010, Apple CEO
Steve Jobs made a public issue of the same problems Mr. Icaza had
spotted years earlier: Adobe Flash was a battery hog, a security
risk, and ultimately a bad choice for Apple's mobile platforms, he
said.
Mr. Jobs also had a personal grudge to settle. According to his
biographer, Walter Isaacson, he never forgave Adobe for refusing to
make its industry-standard Adobe Premiere video-editing software
run on Macintosh computers in 1999, when Apple was struggling to
survive.
Mr. Jobs's condemnation was enough for companies like Brightcove
Inc., a Boston, Mass., video software developer. Brightcove, which
had built its business on Flash, scrambled to replace it.
"Immediately, the entire ecosystem of people involved in video
pivoted," said Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove's chairman and founder.
Like YouTube, his company switched to free software based on open
standards that were equally well suited to desktop and mobile
devices.
Adobe continued to make money on tools for making Flash-based
websites, but it was unable to fully capitalize on them. It tried
to sell Flash server software, but that product couldn't compete
with a free alternative. Flash still comes bundled with Microsoft's
Internet Explorer, Google's ChromeOS, and Apple's MacOS, but Adobe
doesn't get any revenue from those deals.
Adobe itself now considers flash to be immaterial to its
business, meaning that it accounts for less than 5% of company
revenue, but it is still widely used on websites built for
browsers. The software runs on under 6% of the Internet's home
pages and its use is declining, according to BuiltWith Pty Ltd,
which tracks Internet technology.
Like Brightcove, Adobe has pivoted. It built its Creative Cloud
tools for software developers around the technologies that replaced
Flash. Creative Cloud can take advantage of Flash, but Adobe has
increased its investment in the open Web standard HTML5 over the
past four years. Microsoft, whose Silverlight software is a Flash
competitor, has embraced HTML5, too. Microsoft says it will stop
supporting Silverlight in six years.
For all of its initial success, Flash's slide hasn't hammered
Adobe's bottom line. The company's stock has more than doubled
since Mr. Jobs pushed Flash into a downhill slide.
Adobe has yet to grant Mr. Stamos's request, but if Flash isn't
yet dead, it is breathing its last gasps--and some in the tech
community still think of it fondly.
Netflix, for instance, still retains one of what once was a
five-person Flash development team. Roman Staroushnik is the last
man standing. Asked about the product's decline, he delivered
something of a eulogy.
"It's kind of sad that it happened, because it was a great
platform," he said. "It did a great job of merging the gap between
designers and developers."
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