Adobe's failure
Out of context: Reply #22
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- stewdio0
I agree with you that one of Flash's benefits is that it's a standard that operates the same regardless of browser or platform. (I'm sure there are some tiny technical exceptions, but those are minor oddities that don't represent the larger picture.) In my hypothetical that you quoted above I didn't envision that Adobe would discontinue their Flash plugin for other browsers.
And when I was imagining Adobe adding special enhancements I didn't mean something that would break compatibility. Imagine this Adobe browser silently auto-updates Flash, ensuring that you are always running the must up to date and secure version? (Google's Chrome auto updates below your notice, making it a seamless experience.) What if they offered hardware acceleration for Flash in their browser, but not for Flash in Explorer, Safari, etc. (That's not really breaking compatibility because it's similar to the difference between running something intensive on a new machine vs an older, slower one.) What if you could manage Flash's security preferences right in the Adobe browser's preferences window? (Rather than that odd non-standard looking interface that somehow sits on Adobe's website.) Perhaps the browser would have built-in benchmarking and diagnostics so you could analyze a Flash app's performance; memory, requests, threads, etc. (Well, I don't think Flash app are multi-threaded right? But you get the picture.) If these "special features" don't sound special enough perhaps that's because they're off the top of my head. But Adobe's got a wealth of experts and cash to throw at the problem so just image that the features would be "special enough."
My point is that with their own browser Adobe wouldn't be diminishing their market penetration, but enhancing it. Securing it. Again I have to point to Google here. They were concerned about the performance of their web apps. They made their own browser and therefore gained further control. (This didn't cause people using FireFox or Safari to suddenly stop using Google, yea?)
As far as Java goes, I think these are separate stories because the context surrounding them is so different. The only comparison I can see is that Java hasn't been able to win in the browser because it runs like crap there. Similarly, Flash can't win in the mobile market because it runs like crap on these light-weight devices. Both problems have the potential to be fixed, but I imagine neither will.