Microsoft Licenses Rival Adobe's Mobile Flash -- Smart Move

Dan Frommer | March 17, 2008 11:13 AM

Microsoft will license Adobe's (ADBE) Flash Lite animation/video software for its Windows Mobile smartphones, Adobe said today. At first glance, this might seem counterintuitive: Microsoft is spending a lot of money developing a rival product called Silverlight, which, in theory, it should promote ahead of Adobe's software. But today's deal makes perfect sense.

In the short term, Microsoft must fight for whatever mindshare it can get for its Windows Mobile operating system, which is losing relevance to Research In Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerries and Apple's (AAPL) iPhone, and will face more competition when Google's (GOOG) Android smartphones roll out later this year.

Most phones don't support Flash, so that's one feature Microsoft (MSFT) can trumpet as a potential advantage over the iPhone. And while Microsoft is betting on its own app -- Silverlight -- it's pretty useless right now, as very few publishers use it on their Web sites.

In the longer term, when Microsoft figures out how it will integrate its newly acquired Danger mobile platform and whatever mobile software it gets from Yahoo (YHOO) -- and if more Web publishers like Major League Baseball adopt Silverlight over Flash -- then it can worry about pushing Mobile Silverlight ahead of Flash Lite.

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15 Comments

synthmeister said:

Mar. 17, 12:28 PM

Last paragraph should read…

"In the longer term, when Microsoft figures out how it will integrate its newly acquired Danger mobile platform and whatever mobile software it gets from Yahoo (YHOO) -- and if more Web publishers like Major League Baseball adopt Silverlight over Flash -- then it can worry about how to knife Flash in the back.

Maybe Adobe should have a little chat with Sun about Java.

Grant Klassen said:

Mar. 17, 2:06 PM

Yup . . . add more bloated, processor intensive, under performing, battery sucking features to the Windows Mobile platform.

It's not what you add . . . it's knowing what to leave out!

Martin Hill (URL) said:

Mar. 18, 5:22 AM

Flash Lite 3.0 on mobile phones is NOT the same as the full Flash 9 plug-in you get on desktop PCs. It can not display the vast majority of Flash sites on the web and is instead used mostly to create the user-interface and portals on phones particularly in Japan etc.

The world is moving towards the open Web 2.0 standards of Ajax and Javascript that the iPhone fully supports. This is what we should be applauding Apple for - not pushing for mobile-only, proprietary, expensive, processor-hogging, battery-draining Flash.

-Mart

Dan Frommer said:

Mar. 18, 8:32 AM

Martin, any real information on what kind of Flash features you can/can't use on Flash Light 3.0? E.g. what will work, what won't?

gmatt said:

Apr. 07, 5:25 PM

I really laugh when all these Apple fan boys say how Flash is proprietary and Apple did the right thing to go with open standard. You are talking about iPhone which is sold for good some of money and not to forget the service lock-in, control over what goes on iPhone and so on.
Everyone here is trying to make a buck and Adobe is making that in a honest way. SWF file format is open for anyone to license and create a player for. How about some credit for bringing some color to the web when it was all static and boring.
Unfortunately Flash Lite has been a step behind it's big brother desktop Flash player for lot of valid reasons but that will change soon.

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