Adobe Upgrades Flash, Aiming to Prove Jobs Wrong (Update3)
By Rochelle Garner
May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Adobe Systems Inc. Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen introduced a souped-up version of his flagship software that’s designed to make video run more smoothly on mobile phones -- and quash criticism by Steve Jobs.
The next iteration, Flash 10.1, was unveiled today at a conference sponsored by Google Inc. The release came after a critique from Jobs, Apple’s CEO, who last month faulted Flash as slow, power hungry and unable to support touch screens.
Those drawbacks make Flash unsuitable for Apple’s mobile products, according to Jobs. The challenge for Adobe: Ensuring that other electronics makers quickly build and deliver devices using the new software, said Piper Jaffray & Co. analyst Mike Olson.
“Given everything that’s going on between Apple and Adobe, it’s critical for Adobe to get Flash up and running on other handset manufacturers’ devices in the next six to 12 months,” Olson said in an interview from Minneapolis. “If they can show traction on other devices -- which will use Flash to compete against Apple -- it should take some of the pressure off.”
Adobe said Flash 10.1 will support touch screens, conserve battery life and take advantage of faster mobile processors.
Nineteen of the 20 largest handset makers, including Motorola Inc., HTC Corp., LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics Co., plan to offer devices running the software, Adobe said. Smartphones, tablets and netbooks sporting Google’s Android mobile operating system will be among the first to run 10.1.
Need for Speed
“The market will ultimately render a verdict on the devices they want to use,” David Wadhwani, vice president of Adobe’s Platform Business Unit, said in an interview last week. “We’re confident these device manufacturers will provide compelling screen offerings.”
Still, not all devices will handle Flash equally well, said Bill Henry, a product director at Nvidia Corp., the No. 2 maker of graphics chips. His company worked with San Jose, California- based Adobe for about a year to fine-tune Nvidia’s mobile graphics processor for Flash, and ensure it plays high- definition video and games without draining a battery, he said.
“You have to run Flash on the right processor,” Henry said in an interview from Santa Clara, California. “How quickly and how much power it uses is something that’s still up for debate. We believe there will be a battery life issue if Flash isn’t running on the right processor.”
Cynthia Fetty, an outside spokeswoman for Adobe, declined to comment.
Nvidia Chip
Henry declined to say how many handset makers will use Nvidia’s mobile graphics processor. Android devices running the chips with Flash will be available by December, he said.
Android is used by more than a dozen smartphone makers, and it runs on almost 10 percent of all the smartphones shipped, said research firm Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut.
ARM Holdings Plc, which licenses chip designs to processor makers, said Adobe was late in delivering a test version of Flash 10.1. That delay is partly responsible for pushing back the newest batch of netbooks, James Bruce, ARM’s lead mobile strategist, said in an interview from San Jose, California.
“Flash player is available later than originally planned, but the reason it’s late is there’s a lot of heavy lifting involved,” said Bruce, whose company is based in Cambridge, England. “Adobe is taking software for the laptop world, where you have vast amounts of memory and don’t worry about battery consumption, and moving that to the smartphone.”
Qualcomm Inc., based in San Diego, licenses ARM’s designs for its Snapdragon chipsets. The company said Snapdragon, used in products such as HTC Inc.’s Nexus One phone, will support the new mobile player.
Adobe fell $1.14, or 3.5 percent, to $31.74 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have declined 14 percent this year.
Flash Growth
Adobe, which sells tools that designers and developers use to create videos, animation and other creative content, says Flash is flourishing. Earlier this month, Adobe told analysts the number of Flash designers and developers worldwide grew 59 percent last year. About 3.5 million creative professionals now use Flash, Adobe said.
The gains came even as Flash remains excluded from the Apple iPhone, which debuted in 2007. At a March 2008 Apple shareholders meeting, Jobs said the personal-computer version of Flash was “too slow to be useful” and that a mobile version, called Flash Lite, “isn’t capable enough to actually be used with the Web.”
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, ratcheted up its Flash critique last month when it stipulated that developers write directly for the iPhone and other mobile devices, and not rely on intermediary software.
A week later, Jobs issued a 29-paragraph open letter explaining why he regards Flash unfit for Apple mobile devices.
‘Huge Issue’
Jobs’s Flash ban makes it harder for design professionals to work, Lars Bastholm, chief creative officer for Ogilvy North America, said in an interview from New York.
“Flash is used by just about every creative agency out there,” Bastholm said. “Not having Flash on an iPhone or an iPad is a huge issue for advertisers, because all of a sudden their ads don’t run. And that’s forcing us to reconsider which development process we use.”
About 75 percent of online video runs on Flash, according to Adobe. To keep from losing share, the company will need to enlist makers of mobile devices, said Sasa Zorovic, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Boston.
“Those other makers are looking for an edge against Apple, and if they can say you can access Flash from their devices, that’s a selling point,” Zorovic said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rochelle Garner in San Francisco at rgarner4@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: May 20, 2010 18:29 EDT |
