The high rollers; RIM, Apple (device makers with OS) and Google (Android OS).
- RIM staked out high ground and put the "crack" in every business person's blackberry.
- Apple made their positioning statement "No Flash on iPhone or iPad"
- Google released Android as the Open Source OS, which was adopted by HTC and others
In the last 90 days, RIM has had to bend to the Indian government's request to make their data more accessible. Apple has come under fire for trying to assert omnipotent control over mobile content distribution, as they maintained the "no-flash - not ever" policy. Google announced Google TV and Android is now in Sony's HDTVs, all the while the OS has gained market share faster than anyone would have predicted.
So the stage is set, let the battle begin:
Apple sends out via the media, the first wave of attack striking at any mobile device that uses flash. The list includes Android OS phones and will affect RIM.
Did RIM anticipate the flanking move and simply avoid enabling the ability to run flash on the Torch 9800? Adobe does however make an appearance on the Playbook with Adobe Air.
Google meanwhile has no restrictions to running Flash on Android OS 2.2 and their OS has just taken the lead with 43.6% of all devices shipped in the third quarter now running Android.
With blood in the water the sharks are circling and the collateral damage from the initial strike appears to be Adobe. The security flaw which has now been acknowledged as serious by Adobe itself has the potential to impact not just mobile by all devices running Reader, Acrobat and Flash.
The timing is quite convenient for Apple. The security flaw with Adobe requires a patch to the Flash player. How many times have you need to update the plugin lately? It almost seems as if Steve Job's knew of this vulnerability all along. In a way I guess it is pretty much what he announced when making his defining statement "Thoughts on Flash" pertaining to Flash on iPhones et al.
So what does this mean to the marketplace? Adobe has a lot a stake here and will surely patch the problem but is the damage to their reputation already insurmountable? Might Adobe now be required to spend more time on rebuilding their reputation than fighting the Flash battle? If that happens what does this mean for RIM and Android OS?
Without the positioning of "we are Flash friendly" the Playbook is just another tablet and more or less a new toy for the Crackberry devotees. Android OS on the other hand has played out the scenario perfectly. By not excluding Flash or even getting into the war of words, Google took the high ground. Their claim is simply, "we were open to all development". Google looks like the Swiss, establishing a neutral position while the casualties mount around them but don't award the Nobel Peace Prize just yet. Remember Google owns an open source video codec called WebM (formerly VP8). WebM will certainly run on Android and because it is declared Open Source it is available to anyone else, including Adobe and RIM.
So the battle field shifts to video on the web and specifically mobile devices. Apple with WebKit has announced their move toward HTML5. Google even used WebKit for the Android browser. Google maintaining open source practices has fully integrated HTML5 into their business model, Chrome browser and Android OS are HTML5 ready. RIM's Playbook will have Adobe Air and HTML5, Flash apps will run via Air or WebKit. So the fly in the ointment becomes, what wrapper does one use to deliver video to the mobile device with? Wrappers carry the codec H.264 (mpeg4) WebM, or Ogg Theora to the device media player. You will notice that Microsoft Windows Media is absent from this list. That topic is worthy of an entire blog unto itself, but for context read this statement regarding Silverlight, if you feel WMV is germane to this discussion.
Wrapper options for mobile are Flash, Quicktime or the video tag within HTML5.
Apple embraces the H.264 codec and obviously Quicktime as the player / wrapper
RIM is on the fence so PlayBook has Flash for H.264 and HTML5 for WebM or Ogg Theora
Android remains open but clearly has a vested interest in the proliferation of WebM
As a footnote: H.264 requires a license from MPEGLA to be used commercially. WebM is free as is Ogg Theroa
To summarize: The tactic of exposing security issues with Flash has one objective, marginalize Flash as the wrapper / player and in so doing eliminate devices that use the Flash player. The defensive response from RIM will be to embrace HTML5 which is still sorting out the codec that will ultimately become the default video tag which will still take at least two years. Google has WebM and Android which is gaining market share rapidly. Therefore the battle comes down to two combatants, Google and Apple, Android and Mac iOS, Quicktime and WebM, H.264 and VP8.
As you go to your local consumer electronic store to get your next mobile gadget, keep all this in mind. Who do you or don't you trust? Apple = iTunes for all content and is for the most part a closed shop. They will argue it is to avoid issues like that which have plagued Flash. Google = web ubiquity, although open source, they now have everything you do, type, watch and read running across and stored on their servers.
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