The Adaptive Marketer

Adobe Vs. Apple – It Ain’t About Video – It’s About The Money

Posted on 04. May, 2010 by Robert Rose in Online Marketing

So, I live in Hollywood – and there’s a saying… “when somebody tells you it ain’t about the money… It’s about the money”.      So, perhaps you’ve been following the Apple vs. Adobe spat over Flash.  If you haven’t, it’s gotten relatively interesting over the last week or so – especially since Steve put up a blog post entitled “Thoughts On Flash”. There’s some interesting perspectives at O’Reilly on Publishers using Flash – and Thomas Claburn over at Information Week is reporting from Web 2.0 Expo on what is sure to be an interesting week.

In that Apple post, Steve goes on to opine about how technology should be open and how Adobe’s Flash just isn’t.   I’m not quite sure what kind of mushrooms they’re putting in Steve’s vegan pasta dishes – but whatever they are – I want some.

He then goes on to claim that Flash was “designed for PC’s using mice” and not human touch.  Um, no, that’s like saying that paper with writing is flawed because its designed for people that can see.  The platform has nothing to do with what’s designed on it.

But never mind any of that.

If you’re reading about this stuff, you’ll see that almost all of the press and analysis is about how Apple isn’t going to support “Flash” for video.  Basically, Steve sez: Apple doesn’t want to support Flash on the iPad or iPhone because video will spoil the battery life and the experience.

But here’s the thing…. It’s very easy to unwind online video from a Flash Wrapper and put something else (or nothing) around it.  And, after all,  HTML 5 will make that obsolete (this is also one of Apple’s main points).  But remember that HTML 5 is still in the “Draft” state – so Web developers are *just now* starting to look at this.  It’s going to be at least a year or so before HTML 5 starts to become a big deal in anybody’s life.

In short, this is exactly what Steve wants – a conversation that’s not about the conversation.    This is soooo not about Video.   Video codecs and the life expectancy of a Web 1.0 technology is checkers and Jobs is playing chess.

As Bugs Bunny would say, this is all about the dough, the moolah, the cash money, the dinero, the cheddar…

It’s About Advertising

So, at a zillion Ad Agencies across the country (that *might* be a bit of an overstatement), Flash is the favored format for delivering display advertising.  It’s cheap to produce, offers interactivity, video, analytics, targeting, audience segmentation, kitchen sink etc.   In short, it’s the perfect format for me (as a creator of advertising) to optimize my content display across numerous platforms (e.g. web sites) and target my audiences – while maintaining an efficient creative process.  In fact, content management is one of the biggest benefits.  I can change messages mid-campaign stream…

I can create my Flash Ad as a self-encapsulated “app” and I can control its content from a centralized location.   In other words, using Flash,  I can change the text and images on all those display ads at the click of a button.

And, say what you will about the online display advertising market being in the crapper – it’s still roughly a $40 Billion market.  And, who knows how much it will be once we start counting in the millions of iPad/iPod/iPhone devices out there.  And, of course, there’s been rumors o’plenty about Adobe (with its acquisition of Omniture) offering up a free tracking methodology for video, flash ads, PDF’s etc…

So,  Okay, Where’s The Rub

If Apple blocks access to Flash on its devices – it basically blocks a huge piece of the new advertising pie (e.g. iPhone, iPad) from Flash. This means that it forces anybody who wants to develop advertising vehicles for this platform to use Apple’s new iAd platform.  And guess who controls *Exactly* how that platform will look, feel and behave and get tracked.

It’s the App Store for Ads… Only it’s the iAds Store….  This, in the parlance of the old TV Series Outer Limits gives Steve the control of the vertical and horizontal…. He can certainly take the revenue share on the ads (40% at last count) , – but he also gets to control the creative and interactive experience of advertising on his platform.

Apple isn’t looking to “beat” Adobe – but rather just carve out it’s own position in the Ad creation market.  And, even if this doesn’t have long-term implications (which I think it actually does), then they (at least) have a great head start to both give the iAds platform a kickstart, and it can start to develop a huge defendable position from Microsoft and the Silverlight platform – and ultimately continue to try and put the Google Android “baby” in the corner.

Yes, I know – nobody puts the Google Android baby in the corner

But here’s the thing – Agencies aren’t going to learn 4 new ad platform technologies… They’re going to be hard pressed to learn a second (flash being the first)… And, if they HAVE to use iAds to deploy on iPhones and iPads – then they’ll do it.   I think this, interestingly, puts Google in the position of defending Flash – for at least a little while.

You’ll also note that Apple is acquiring Siri – the search company for mobile search…  Look out Google – cuz this is a huge shot across the bow of the “new” search advertising.

Flash Is Not Dead.  It’s Only Mostly Dead

Now, I certainly don’t have any inside information, but I’ll bet you that Adobe is, ultimately, okay to see Flash ultimately go the way of Aldus Pagemaker or Cold Fusion (two of their other mostly dead acquisitions). And, let’s remember there are tons of other utilizations for Flash.  There are at least half a dozen big SaaS applications that use Flash components in their UI.   There are also games, and other legacy applications out there that will continue to exist for years.  To put Jobs’ quote of Flash is developed for “PC’s with mice” into perspective – let’s remember that there are still billions of computers out there that *aren’t* mobile devices.

But most importantly, from a revenue standpoint for Adobe it’s never been about Flash – it’s always been about Creative Suite.

So, mourn not for the disappearance of Flash from your favorite online video player.  And, just be mindful of when Apple says it’s all about the video.   Steve is the mastermind of distraction for creating Apple strategy.   Don’t forget these oldies but goodies from Steve.

In 2004: On whether Apple would develop a video iPod:

“It’s about the music, stupid.  You can’t watch a video and drive a car.  We’re focused on Music.”

In 2003, on whether music should be protected:

“we don’t believe it’s possible to protect digital content… What’s new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the internet”.

In 2007, on Announcing the mobile Safari browser would be the de-facto iPhone Software Developers kit:

“Our innovative approach, using Web 2.0 standards, lets developers create amazing new applications while keeping the iPhone secure”

Just remember when Steve zigs… it might be good to get ready to zag….

Photo Credit: Steve Rhodes

Tags: Adobe, Advertising, Apple, Steve Jobs