Flash vs HTML is actually Browser vs OS

Flash and HTML are, to anyone who regularly uses them both, not inherently conflicted at all.  They actually work quite well together...and to companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe...perhaps too well.

A few years ago a project called "Aviary.com" presented what could be considered a complete replacement for photoshop.  Given the power recently bestowed on the flash platform tools, it was possible to build almost any application one could think of in the browser itself, and this was proven by Aviary and later project Rome by adobe (rome.adobe.com). 

This likely caused significant fear in the hearts of all software-for-profit folks who could see a big enough picture to realize their incredibly hard work and high investment projects could now be relegated to the same low status of a website.  No more big install, no more background running, and now subservient to the browser.  The OS itself could then become nothing but a wrapper to the web browser, which would now control the user experience and eventually free itself from the OS in low cost PCs.  Google has uniquely taken this dream and run with it, and is already selling what is essentially just that, a 250 dollar laptop with nothing but their browser based "chrome" on it.  The only thing you pay for in that case is the physical object.

Both the Rome and Aviary projects have either cut features or moved to an app model since originally released, as you can see on their websites, but one can see the potential there to utterly decimate the market for what is currently a $600 graphics program available as a standalone app (Photoshop), particularly if they managed to get a look at the earlier iterations of these projects.

Thus one could see how it might be perceived as necessary for software companies to, by all means possible, slow or stop altogether the flow of feature rich functionality to the browser and keep it where it belongs...a content viewer and nothing more.   As many pay-wall websites have come to realize, it's *incredibly* difficult to get people to pay for a website, but consumers continue to pay hundreds of dollars for what they perceive as "software", and some dollars for what they perceive as "mini software" AKA an "app", even though an app may have as much or more functionality than any standard shrink wrap software product.  The main thing is, we're still physical beings.  We need stuff on a shelf to show for what we bought, and websites cant offer this.  All they can offer is yet another password to remember.   I think that is why the app store has the "icon object" display that gives a sense of ownership to the person who bought some apps as the app stays ever present, reminding the user of all they own.


It's important to not confuse the "Cloud" with a browser based experience.  The cloud is routinely accessed by non-browser based applications the same way the browser accesses it.

In the mean time, Adobe is quickly expanding the capabilities of AIR and Flash to compete with the classic major application development platforms offered around Java and C++, and subsequently many of the most popular apps on mobile are actually created with AIR and Flash then compiled for the particular device.  So by no means is flash "dead", what's really being actively choked to death (most recently by Adobe themselves) is the concept of flash running in a browser with all its power and capabilities instead of as purchased standalone applications, IE where the money is.

In the mean time, the W3 (largely controlled by these interests + Google) argues about how to keep the features of HTML limited enough that it cant get out of control like flash did, and become a full blown feature rich application development environment.  Aviary did have an HTML5 image editor available but the page has since been 404'd:  http://www.aviary.com/html5 , probably because it clearly conflicted with their business model. 

The question is, will flash just be the first of many of these kinds of technologies that put high degrees of capabilities anywhere?  No one but the independently wealthy volunteer force of the open community would have any motivation to maintain something like that, but it may indeed be inevitable in a free market, either the reigns will be taken off of flash by forces outside of Adobe or we'll see HTML 5 rise to the capability at some point in the future.  Either way, this is all nothing but a smoke screen and no particular technology (flash, java, html5) etc, is inherently bad and to be avoided.  If anything it just means one should use the tool that best suits the business model one has.

addendum:  Google Chrome OS supports flash - its integrated into Chrome OS.

http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=108086

Clearly Google sees the browser as the future, and if one were to thus "hedge their bets" on a particular technology that would allow them a single codebase for all devices and OS's, flash is certainly the winner at this point in collaboration with AIR.