You go meet the world’s richest man for a day and gigantic MXNA news hits: Mike Downey is leaving Flash to become the Senior Product Manager for Apollo. In the man’s own words:

I’m very excited to announce that I’ve accepted the position of Sr. Product Manager on the Apollo team at Adobe. It was a very difficult decision because I’m so attached to the Flash team (I bleed Flash red!), but in the end, it was simply an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. I really think Apollo has the potential to be one of the most important technologies in the history of the Web, just like Flash. I also think Apollo has the promise to take Adobe to the next level.

For those following along at home, the Apollo team is becoming the New York Yankees of Adobe (hopefully with better results). They’ve ended up with Chambers, now Downey and Ted has been doing some hybrid Flex-Apollo evangelism (though I’m not sure what his official job title is any more). If Matt, Ely and the other Mike end up jumping ship then we can just start handing out the championship rings now boys and girls.

There is going to be a ton of RIA knowledge on that team. 

[tags]Apollo, Mike Downey, Adobe, Flex[/tags]