I was reading Dare Obasanjo’s post Understanding Apollo which led me to a post by Harry Pierson about Silverlight. Harry’s post touched a bit on the “platform competition” that is brewing between Adobe and Microsoft. But I tend to think the “competition” is a bit overblown as Adobe and Microsoft are taking two very, very different strategies as they expand their respective platforms. There is definitely starting to be some overlap in the two platforms, but I think we’re targeting different types of developers.

Rich Internet Applications are the latest battleground partly because they blend the web and the desktop, but for right now, they’re just one part of a wider picture that encompasses desktops, the web, devices and everything in between. Microsoft has always had a strong desktop developer base with Windows. Adobe/Macromedia targeted the web early on and focused on using Flash to expand the experience on the web.

Microsoft wants to move onto the web, and they should, the web is great. They’re doing that by taking their desktop knowledge and bringing some of that to the web environment. Things like the .NET framework, XAML and their media codecs come from a desktop-centric world. This gives Microsoft developers a huge new sandbox to play in. If you’ve been doing desktop development on Microsoft’s platform, you now can take those skills to the web.

Adobe is taking their web mentality and using Apollo to give web developers a way to deploy desktop applications. I feel pretty safe in saying that Apollo isn’t targeted at desktop developers, it’s targeted at web developers. The cross-platform nature, the core technologies, the easy install – all of it is meant to behave a lot like the web does so that web developers will feel at home. We (Adobe) want to give those web developers a bigger sandbox to play in just as Microsoft wants to give desktop developers an easy way to deploy to the web.

Sure there will be some overlap, and part of the “battle” is trying to get new developers to the platform, but I think the line breaks pretty clearly between different developer types and methods. The differences between the actual technologies are going to get smaller I think, so part of the reason to choose a platform should be what appeals to your particular view of development. As a web developer, I think Adobe has a good strategy (that’s part of the reason I went to work for them). I love the openness of the web and the creativity that it’s let loose. I like that Adobe is trying to enhance that and bring it to the wider world of software.

Disclosure: I’m now working for Adobe as a Rich Internet Application Evangelist on the Platform Team. I’m employeed by Adobe but the thoughts here on my blog are my own.

[tags]Adobe, Microsoft, Rich Internet Applications, Development, Platform, Silverlight, Flash, Apollo[/tags]