Adobe becomes a cloud company with Touch Apps
Acquires Nitobi for its open source HTML5 framework, shifting away from Flash and towards tablets
Published: 4 October, 2011
READ MORE: M&A | Adobe | Applications (Browser) | Tablet | Flash
Adobe is seeing the long dominance of its Flash plug-in technology being eroded by HTML5's in-browser media capabilities. The firm is determined to stay relevant, and the past year has seen a string of developments geared to Flash/HTML5 coexistence. At its annual MIX developer event this week, it has got more serious about its new strategy, with a series of web-focused announcements particularly geared to tablets.
First up was the Touch Apps family, a group of six programs for Android and iOS tablets. These bring the functionality of Adobe's Creative Suite desktop software, including full Photoshop image editing, to a touchscreen slate. They will arrive on Android next month and the iPad from early 2012.
These apps are early fruits of a far broader strategy called Creative Cloud, which will create a hub for viewing, sharing and syncing files created either with Touch Apps or Creative Suite. This will be extended over time to allow users to collaborate across a far wider range of devices.
This is not just about migrating between technology platforms, but also changing the revenue model from packaged software fees to the delivery of software online, or as a subscription service. None of the new products will be packaged, and that type of software now accounts for only one-third of Adobe's sales.
"The move to the Creative Cloud is a major component in the transformation of Adobe," said CTO Kevin Lynch in a statement. He and his colleagues were also noticeably quiet about Flash, the company's core technology for so long, and instead spoke at length about HTML5 and open source activities.
To enhance these, Adobe has acquired Nitobi Software, an important player in the open source HTML5 world. Nitobi was a close partner of Nokia in the Symbian days and its PhoneGap framework has been the basis of web developer kits from several mobile players including Sony Ericsson and Palm. Last year, Nitobi announced PhoneGap Build, a cloud-based tool for creating apps in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, uploading them to Build, and getting them back ready to run on various smartphone platforms including Android, iOS, Windows, Symbian, BlackBerry and bada.
Nitobi's mission has been to increase the number and usability of web-based products for mobile platforms, by making development easier and cheaper, and over time it believes the functions of PhoneGap, and many other cloud-based platforms, will be folded into the browser. The fact that this thinking has landed up inside Adobe shows how rapidly the larger company is evolving to cope with a post-Flash world.
"Our hope is the creative cloud will reach a lot more people than we do today," added Lynch. "We see this as a way to reach a whole new generation. We are making moves to create new technology ourselves and bring in technologies from others for that purpose as well."
More details of the cloud strategy will be revealed as the MIX event progresses this week, but key elements like pricing will not be made public until later in the year.
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