Wow, I feel like I have entered some alternate dimension, Microsoft has joined arch rival Apple and criticised Flash as a web standard. A few days ago, Steve Jobs came out in a long statement about why Apple would not offer Flash support in it’s mobile devices. I won’t go over the details of that memo again here as we covered it in Geek Actually Tech (episode 10), but basically Jobs offered several points that we agreed with and a little bit of condescension that we didn’t agree with. Adobe fired back by saying that Apple was just trying to sell their products and the people should be able to make their own decisions about what they want to use. I have way over simplified this, but you can read the rebuttal here. This is very Apple behaviour and there is nothing strange about this, however, this is were the strange alternate reality kicks in.
Wait, I think I should just explain, very quickly, what Flash is for those that don’t know. Adobe’s Flash is a web tool for creating animation and interactive games etc. for the net. It started life several years ago as a tool to create simple animations for websites and has grown into this very beefy tool that even incorporates it’s own scripting language (Action Script). If you’ve ever played Farmville on Facebook, that is made entirely in Flash.
Anyway, back to Bizzaroworld. Yesterday The Sydney Morning Herald had an article about Microsoft coming out and supporting Apple in it’s bid to move away from Flash. These two companies have been at each other’s throats for years and now they suddenly stand side by side, wow. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch (pictured) said, “Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security and performance.” It is also interesting to note that Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s new mobile phone operating system, does not support Flash just like the iPhone.
Microsoft even went so far as to say that it would back the same open web protocols and solutions that Apple wants to back (HTML 5, H.264 and Javascript). Is it just me or does anyone else find it kind of creepy that these two companies are agreeing with each other? It gets stranger, Hachamovitch went on to say that Internet Explorer 9 would support the same type of web video as Safari (H.264) rather than Flash or Ogg Theora (the format that Firefox is backing). Weird. Is this the beginning of a brave new world or have we just entered the Twilight Zone?
I’d love to hear the thoughts of all the Apple and Microsoft fan boys (and girls) on this one. The fans have spent so long bagging each other’s systems out, can they actually stop now and be friends?
2 comments
No no no. Microsoft can join forces with Apple. It says some in the Microbible
Is that in the Book of Jobs or the Book of Gates, I can never remember :-)