Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch Talks About Apple Insults, Flash's Future and More!
For a man scorned, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch looked awfully calm on my visit to the software company’s San Francisco HQ yesterday.
He could, I suppose, be hopping mad.
To add insult to injury–from an inside-baseball tech point of view, at least–after Apple (AAPL) introduced the iPad tablet in January without Flash Player technology, which Apple also kept out of the iPod and iPhone, word immediately floated up that CEO Steve Jobs had dissed Adobe as “lazy” at an employee meeting.
Also, added Jobs, Adobe (ADBE) had let Flash become a buggy security nightmare and resource hairball.
Lynch was only a tiny bit less cutting in his blog reaction to the lack of Flash in the iPad at its launch: “Some have been surprised at the lack of inclusion of Flash Player on a recent magical device.”
Of course, he was not surprised at all, which is why Adobe was very busy lately announcing a wide range of initiatives.
They included yesterday’s rollout at the Mobile World Congress in Spain of a version of Adobe’s AIR software for a wide range of smartphones, as well as showing off Flash 10.1 on Google’s Android devices.
Such effusive touting is now Lynch’s most important job as the head techie in charge of Flash. The ubiquitous video technology is under siege not only from Apple, but also from many others, including Google (GOOG), all of which are aiming to make the Web work someday without the need for Flash in an HTML5 universe.
Still, Adobe is forging ahead with Google and other makers of smartphone platforms, except for Apple, to make Flash work better–as well as with a range of publishers to become the technology used in e-reader products.
But rather than BoomTown explaining it all for you, here is Lynch himself talking about the flashpoints over Flash, including fixing Adobe’s well-documented security issues with malware, his feelings about what Jobs said and efforts to keep Flash innovative.
I will also have a demo by Lynch up later, but here is the video of his interview first:
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