Bruce Chizen Interviewed by John Battelle in Business 2.0
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]
Posted in Adobe
September 24th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
Hummm. Interesting. If you think of it one way – it doens’t matter to Adobe if Flex is accepted by the developers – it’s their internal platform to move their desktop apps to the web. If it’s accepted by developers too, well that’s just bonus!
September 25th, 2006 at 2:29 am
Hi Stephen,
Please check out FlexSeminar.com and watch David Mendels’ presentation. Adobe cares very much that Flex is widely adopted by developers. Their goal is to build the ecosystem to 1,000,000 developers in the next few years and certainly exceed that amount. If you look at the core of the Flex 2 Builder, it was designed specifically for middleware developers who struggled with Flash (timeline, movieclips, layers, etc…) but wanted the expressiveness, ubiquity, and engaging experience the Flash platform offers. The goal for Adobe is a large and thriving Flex developer community. Adobe brought in some of their heaviest hitters to help make sure Flex is a success and accepted by developers. The bonus is to have additional product offerings based on the Flex platform.
Regards,
Mike Kollen
September 25th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Hey Stephen, I think Mike’s right. Adobe really is trying to push a big developer community. They’ve been promoting Flex with a lot of their ColdFusion developers and they are also targeting Ajax developers. And I think they’re making big strides.
September 25th, 2006 at 10:15 am
Oh, I’m not saying they aren’t promoting the product, but in regards to Chizen, it’s easy to see Flex as the “product” developed so they can implement his vision of web-servicing their desktop apps. It’s a chicken or the egg question. Flex certianly is a powerful product, and getting the million developers will be phenominal. No, I’m not discounting the developer push, only saying that in the light of the interview Flex is the key to Adobe’s survival.
I’m still trying to figure out if Flex came from the Macromedia acquisition, or if it was already in development at Adobe. That would be an interesting look – was Macromedia brought on not just for their existing tool set, but it gave Adobe the right people (and a lot of them) to implement the web-services? If Chizen says three to five years to implement web-services, Adobe needed a top-notch set of people, and a lot of them, right that moment. For me, even outside of products (and I’ve always supported the merger, think it’s the best thing for ColdFusion), the vaule to Adobe would be the talent required to build highly complex web-services. A hummm.
(yes, a world of conjecture, but fun!)
September 25th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Flex was introduced by Macromedia a few years ago. They released Flex 1.0 which had significant problems. 1.5 was released which fixed a bunch but was still rather difficult to use and pricey. Both were released prior to Macromedia being acquired.
Flex 2 is a massive enhancement that was developed prior and during the acquisition and the time since.
FYI, there is an article (I haven’t read it yet) in today’s USA Today showing Chizen’s picture, base salary ($2M US) and talking about Adobe.
September 25th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
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September 26th, 2006 at 8:12 am
I’ll be keen to read the article in question… to see if coldfusion has an honerable mention from Chizen (or not).
October 6th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Chizen, Battelle
Chizen, Battelle: Business 2.0 ran an interview with Adobe CEO awhile ago (see Ryan Stewart), but today’s republishing on Yahoo is the first I’ve had the chance to read it. Themes: Adobe technology is used invisibly in most of the world’s communicat…
October 6th, 2006 at 7:46 am
Followup: I see a syndication on Yahoo, Oct6, but am not certain how long the link will be live:
http://biz.yahoo.com/hbusn/061006/091406_8387108.html?.v=1
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