Also I can hear the collective ‘NO’ of every corporate I.T. department when asked about allowing users to install the Chrome Frame plugin.

I don’t think it’s that obvious, and it raises an interesting question in my mind. If Flash had started with video support, rather than adding it, would it ever have become as widespread?

The main problem with media plug-ins was that most IT departments banned their installation – they were rarely required for people’s jobs, and were a major source of security holes.

Flash was considered acceptable – and rolled out by the OS vendors too – and then grew video capability.

The other problem I see with a lot of arguments here is that they’re based around current HTML 5 implementations and current Flash implementations, as if this won’t change. Someone was saying that about Internet Explorer once, when it was new and didn’t display everything Netscape did. It got better.

The interesting issue is what the trend is.

And the other interesting question is what proprietary plug-ins and formats mean for the long-term web – there is already content out there on the web that is not actively maintained, yet locked into some early version of a Windows only plugin.

In fact the spec itself cannot be ratified until there are 2 implementations – this is to prevent the situation of creating an irrelevant standard.

It’s there, to some level, in all the mobile browsers that count. Equally, Microsoft now have to compete (I went past 3 billboards advertising Chrome on the way to work, emphasising it’s speed).

There’s also Google Chrome frame for IE (i.e. a plugin to render HTML 5 in the uncompliant browser) – imagine if HTML 5 pages encouraged IE users to install that, in the same way we do with Flash?

As for the pain of developing for multiple platforms – it’s back, and we’re going to have to deal with it.

It’s developers, and the companies that pay us, that want a world where everyone uses the same product.

And can you imagine if IE decides they don’t want to play the same game as everyone else? Wouldn’t be the first time MS said, “It’s my ball and I’m going home!”

I already went through this pain developing for IE and NS in the late ’90s. Flash Player is the one plugin that runs on the majority of users devices and renders interactive content most consistently across OSs, browsers and devices.

my two cents.

They seem very slow at supporting 64bit. Most laptops and desktop in the pass year has being shipping with a 64 bit version or Windows and now Windows 7.

Adobe has basicly ignore it by saying since you can run 32bit they are not in a rush.

However they have a alpha 64bit support for Linux but nothing for Windows the world #1 OS 95% market.

There is no time table of when Flash 10.1 will come.

So if HTML 5 takes over then Adobe can’t blame their slow support of 64bit for the down fall of Flash.

as i said, flash will indeed stick around for while, but solely due to innovation. and, i have said thisbefore as well, not because it is a good product. it can certainlyuse improvement.

if at some point there is some sort of competition, that almost anybody can use (which excludes silverlight), and there will be a choice between flash and something, there is a chance to opt away from flash. and right now thered be plenty of reasons to switch if there was something equivalent.

but im repeating myself here. i don’t disagree with what any of you said. i only disagree with the argument that adobe and flash are a monopoly, therefore they always will be and therefore flash is a great product. at least for some people, it simply isn’t. and adobe doesn’t seem to be bothered to change that. (its been years since 64 bit OSes , and a while since they are really popular, but again ive said that before.) yes they keep innovating, but again thats not my point.

i don’t know if you use OS X or linux or solaris or something of the like. but i bet most of the users of those OSes would jump on a real alternative. (again, i agree with the argument that it works for the majority of people and that’s the market its targeted to, just saying.)

and should there really be flash for the iphone at some time, that would make my point. unix-like OS, very little cpu power (compared to PCs and macs), …

i think this discussion is over, we’ve all made our points.

I forgot to add.

That doesn’t mean that the problems I mentioned don’t exist. I agree it’s a great product, because it is / was something never seen. But again, that, imho, doesn’t particularly make it good product. That’s all im critisising.

If you’d like to add something please go ahead.

Thanks for the discussion, interesting points of view were articulated.