Adobe Points AIR Gun at Microsoft

Joe Wilcox News Analysis: Today's Adobe AIR and Flex 3 releases are warning shots to Microsoft.

Both companies are aligning their troops along battle lines that likely will erupt a into fierce engagement over the next few weeks and months ahead. Adobe announced its new products, specifically for RIAs—or rich Internet applications—during its Engage event in San Francisco.

Microsoft's return warning shot comes on Wednesday when, in Los Angeles, Visual Studio 2008 launches, along with new versions of the SQL Server and Windows Server. But Microsoft let off an earlier warning volley against Adobe, even as the skirmish lines formed: Last week's DreamSpark program providing free development tools to students. Next week, Microsoft will fire yet again at Adobe from its MIX08 conference in Las Vegas.

The Adobe-Microsoft battle over RIAs will be fierce, because the two companies are fighting for dominance on the same ground: the desktop PC. RIAs are as much about the desktop—perhaps more—than they are about the Web.

Adobe's development goals are similar to Microsoft's:

• Pull computing and informational relevance back to desktop software from the Web
• Provide developers with robust tools for desktop and Web applications/services
• Woo developers to a single development platform for creating and distributing RIAs

.Net versus the Net
While Adobe and Microsoft share similar goals, their development approaches and philosophies differ. For starters, Adobe isn't a .Net shop. AIR strongly favors existing and popular Web and Web-to-desktop development technologies, such as AJAX, Flash, Flex and HTML. Microsoft leverages .Net Framework, Silverlight, Windows Media Video, Windows Presentation Foundation and XAML. While Microsoft's development toolset also supports AJAX, HTML and even Flash, the greater emphasis is the company's own technologies.

If RIA development tool providers were global superpowers, the two companies would be like the Soviet Union and United States of the Cold War era. But there is no mutually assured destruction. Adobe and Microsoft are both playing to win. Adobe is more established, because of Flex and Flash, but Microsoft can leverage two desktop monopolies, Office and Windows, that are tightly tied to Expression Studio, .Net Framework and Visual Studio.

Microsoft's core development approach is simple: .Net. The .Net Framework is the central, unifying technology binding together Microsoft's desktop, server and Web development strategies. Developers choosing .Net Framework tacitly also choose Windows.

Adobe offers alternatives for developers that, at the least, don't want to use .Net Framework or to be locked into a Microsoft technology. Adobe continues to strongly support Java and Java EE, unlike Microsoft.

A fundamental, philosophical difference puts Adobe more in the Web 2.0 platform camp than Microsoft might ever be. Both Adobe and Microsoft share a similar problem of desktop applications/services and development shifting from PC software to the Web platform. But Adobe's approach is much more Web-centric, with its RIA's positioned as more a way of extending the desktop experience and providing offline content access. Microsoft talks similar messaging but walks a different way. Microsoft is more weighted down by legacy desktop software (e.g., Office and Windows) that prevents its real rising into the Web 2.0 cloud.

Something else: Adobe's RIA approach is more about Web mashups than is Microsoft's. Sure, Microsoft has Popfly, which is a fun mashup service. But it's no RIA development or RIA mashup tool. Microsoft's kind of headed in the same direction as Adobe, but with much greater emphasis on pulling computational and informational relevance back to the desktop.

Fresh Air
Adobe and Microsoft both have amassed large arsenals of tools and are aligning allies for the skirmish ahead. AIR's dot-oh release is flanked by some surprising showcase applications and customers, with the aforementioned emphasis on content mashups.

This morning I downloaded and tested eBay Desktop and SHIFD, which was developed by New York Times research. I also played around with Adobe's Buzzword online word processor, which is surprisingly robust and supports all major document formats, including Microsoft's OOXML (Open Office XML).

Adobe's supporting AIR applications and developer customers are much better than Microsoft's collection for Silverlight's launch. Most importantly: Real software and services are available that anyone can use, today! Some, like the eBay Desktop, will have broad appeal because of the service's long reach. Showcase applications like this one will organically pull AIR downloads and raise consumer and enterprise awareness about the technology.

Buzzword won't win any praise from Microsoft, for the service treads on those sensitive Office toes. But it's a slick showcase of an AIR application and service within a Web browser. The nomenclature is excellent, by the way.

The AIR currents shift from today to next week and what Microsoft will unveil at MIX08. Silverlight 2.0 will be a big topic, as will be .Net Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, among other Microsoft tools.

Microsoft needs to strut its stuff, at least as well as Adobe is at this week's Engage. MIX is the right venue, but will Microsoft deliver? Adobe's Engage is going to be a tough act to follow.

From MIX08, the major battle ahead will be between entrenched Flash and newcomer Silverlight. Flex and AIR, along with products like Adobe Media Player, support Flash. But the war will be won on different turf: Broader developer toolsets and supporting server software. Expression Studio and Visual Studio 2008 are two products enjoined. Of course, they will be used separately, but Microsoft has created integration points for designers and developers that make Expression and Visual Studio much better together.

Which Superpower will win the war? There's no easy answer. If Microsoft buys Yahoo, Adobe will get lots of maneuvering room. The merger integration is going to disrupt nearly every Microsoft line of business.

Related Posts:

• Adobe's Acrobat Act, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 18, 2007
• Adobe: 25 Years and Counting, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 12, 2007
• Adobe-Microsoft Collision Course, Microsoft Watch, Oct. 4, 2007
• Apollo Is No Flash in the Pan, Microsoft Watch, March 19, 2007