MercuryNews.com has an article about Flash video penetration in the last two years (catchy title over at eweek). It really is amazing to stop and think about how quickly Flash has become the ultimate video solution. As Kevin notes in the article, the hard part in the beginning was getting Flash adopted. Now that it’s on nearly every computer on the web, there is a lot of potential. I used to wonder if Macromedia “got it” that Flash could be a driving force for so many initiatives, but I don’t doubt that Adobe does. I just hope they can solve the DRM issue soon and do it in such a way that it doesn’t cripple Flash.
The one thing that warrants mentioning is that Flash still has a ways to go. Accustream iMedia Research says that Windows Media Format still has 60% of all streaming video traffic while Flash has a much smaller 19%. Flash is getting bigger, but Windows still has a chokehold on the numbers. Of course Flash has more high profile users including ABC, YouTube and Yahoo. If they can expand on that growth, and I think they can, those numbers could be reversed in a couple of years. That would be quite a coup d’etat for Adobe.
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