Kendall Whitehouse just pointed me to an article from this month’s Business 2.0 in which John Battelle of Federated Media interviews Bruce Chizen about the future direction of Adobe. It’s a very good interview and John touches on a lot of points with Bruce regarding the competition that Adobe is facing. Most of the information isn’t new, but there are a couple of interesting nuggets.

One is regarding Adobe’s mobile strategy. John asked Bruce how Adobe is making money off of Flash, and Bruce said, “Let’s start with cell phones”:

DoCoMo has also launched a new service, I-Channel, that has attracted 2 million new subscribers who pay $4 a month on average. It’s a huge success, and we partake in that And we expect to launch a similar service with a major U.S. carrier early next year.

I’m not sure I’ve heard about this last part, a deal similar to I-Channel with an American carrier, so if you know more than I do, let me know.

The other quote that I liked is one that I actually disagree with Bruce on:

John Battelle: You’ve done a software distribution deal with Google. But is there some point where you two run into each other?

Today, our customers need the power of a CPU on their desktop.  But there is a scenario in which, as broadband speed gets greater and greater, Google uses its advertising model to deliver applications over the Web for free, potentially replacing the desktop applications we make. 

I’m sitting here telling you that it’s coming. I recognize that, our strength is on the desktop, not the Web. I don’t know whether it’s going to be three years or five years, but we have to get there before Google. And we’re starting.

I don’t totally buy it. Obviously Adobe is very desktop-centric, and they are also very tools-centric. If Google can somehow undercut them and offer free web versions of their software, they are in trouble – but they have a great head start when it comes to building applications on the web. Google has invested a ton of money in Ajax, but in order to deliver the kinds of applications that could challenge Adobe’s product line, you need much, much more than Ajax. I don’t think Google has an answer to that, but Adobe does – Flash and Apollo. That’s not to say that Adobe can let their guard down, but it does mean that Adobe isn’t just starting – they’re leading.

I don’t have a link to the article, but when I get one, I’ll update the post.

[tags]Business 2.0, Adobe, Flash, Google, Bruce Chizen[/tags]

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2. Forbes Interview with Bruce Chizen
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