Adobe fires latest volley in war of words with Apple

Jake Widman
Saturday, 15 May 2010 11:37

IT Industry - Strategy

The sniping between Adobe and Apple over who's really open shows no signs of abating, as Adobe takes out a "pro-freedom" ad and the company's founders speak up for innovation.

The very public tiff that started with Apple's decision to leave support for Adobe's Flash format out of the iPad and has played out further in the iPhone OS SDK has now moved to dueling "open letters" from company executives.

A couple of weeks ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs published such a letter touting Apple's commitment to open standards as demonstrated by its support for WebKit, HTML5, and H.264 video.

In the letter, Jobs wrote that "Adobe's Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc'¦.By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system."

Now Adobe has taken out an ad in some newspapers declaring, in large letters, its love for Apple. Among other things the company loves, the ad lists creativity, innovation, the Web, competition, "all devices" and "all platforms."

But, the ad says, Adobe doesn't love anybody taking away "your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the Web."

For what Adobe's founders had to say, see Page 2.