Ground control to Adobe ... Apollo is a go for launch ... or is it?

Ah, powerful, cross-platform development.  The Holy Grail of development.  With Adobe sealing the deal for Macromedia recently the buzz about synergies is ringing in my ears.  But is it a good thing?  Is a marriage of Flash and PDF even needed?  Will it work?  While I like both Flash and PDF, I'm not sure a marriage and yet another runtime engine for users to load is the answer.  I think I have more than enough running on my machine right now.  I'm not the only one who has questions about this ...

Now, maybe I’m just being negative or perhaps I can’t see the forest for the trees… but WHY ON EARTH ARE THEY DOING THIS? Sure, the PDF, SWF and HTML formats are all open - but the SWF player isn’t. You cannot use the File Format Specification to create a SWF interpreter or player . PDF is definitely more open , but many Adobe specific features will not work in alternative viewers (this isn’t necessarily Adobe’s problem). So, the only reason I can see for Adobe creating a ‘universal player’ is to basically lock everyone into their player/runtime ( platform) - under the guise of providing an exceptional user experience . Didn’t Microsoft pull this crap before? Source: Bryan Rieger

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