PBS | I, Cringely . June 23, 2005 – No Flash in the Pan

…Conventional wisdom says that Adobe needs this acquisition to bulk-up for the inevitable conflict to come with Microsoft. Conventional wisdom is occasionally wrong, however. I’m not saying that the acquisition makes no sense. Quite the contrary, I support it. But the lack of competition from Microsoft in Adobe’s traditional graphics markets comes down primarily to Bill Gates realizing that Microsoft simply hasn’t been in a position to compete with Adobe on a technology-for-technology basis. Gates tried to undercut Adobe’s PostScript with Microsoft’s TrueType fonts back in the late 1980s and was taken to the woodshed by Adobe. The professional graphics market wasn’t willing to give Microsoft the three tries it generally needs to get something right.

What’s changed is not the companies (brain-for-brain Adobe is still smarter in its niche), but the market. Microsoft’s endless quest for new revenue lines has settled on PDF as a target for its new Metro product, not just for graphics professionals, but for all of us.

The other thing that has changed is the mobile market, especially mobile phones — the PCs of tomorrow. Macromedia is making progress in the phone market and Adobe, for the most part, isn’t, hence the acquisition.

So it is a good deal all around, especially if Adobe can learn from Macromedia how to have fun.

But let’s get back to Flash for a moment, because I really do believe it is the key to this deal. What’s key about Flash is not just that it is installed on nearly every computer in the world, and that its influence is extending now into mobile phones. What’s key is that we all upgrade to the latest version of Flash as a matter of course, making it the ideal Trojan horse program of all time.

Let’s say Adobe/Macromedia had some little bit of code – a VoIP client, for example — they wanted to bring to market. Just make it part of the next version of Flash. Over the course of a few months and practically without effort, that little program would be installed and ready to go in hundreds of millions of computers. Then all Adobe would have to do is to announce it and the service could be up and running practically overnight. That’s the kind of market clout that not even Microsoft has. And that’s what makes Macromedia a bargain for Adobe even at $3.4 billion.

Peter adaptive path: Peter Merholz: how i learned to stop worrying and relinquish control:

…Again and again, the history of the Web shows us the value of relinquishing control. Amazon’s customer comments were originally thought foolish by those who believed negative reviews would hurt sales. Instead, they increased trust, which drove more transactions. eBay’s open marketplace eschews centralized control of buyers and sellers, instead favoring a distributed management system where individuals rate one another. Not coincidentally, Google, Amazon, and eBay have all made available their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) so that others can leverage their information in unforeseen and innovative ways.

Many designers find it remarkably difficult to relinquish control. As Jeff found out when judging an interactive design competition, designers will go to great lengths to control the user’s experience – popping up windows or resizing them, placing everything within Flash, cueing music. They get so caught up in controlling the superficial form of the product that they neglect to appreciate the context of the experience.

The Web’s lesson is that we have to let go, to exert as little control as necessary. What are the fewest necessary rules that we can provide to shape the experience? Where do people, tools, and content come together? How do we let go in a way that’s meaningful and relevant to our business?

…Relinquishing control is a scary prospect because it diminishes certainty. With control comes predictable outcomes that you can bank on. But in this increasingly complex, messy, and option-filled world, we must acknowledge that our customers hold the reins. Attempts to control their experience will lead to abandonment for the less onerous alternative. What we can do is provide the best tools and content that they can fit into their lives, and their ways.

There is a great article on Philly Future‘s content management system (CivicSpace) and the people behind it at NewsForge.

eWeek: Microsoft has decided that subscribing, via RSS, will join browsing and searching as the third leg of its information-access triangle.

Well it’s about time.