Robert X. Cringely argues in this post that Adobe is in a great position to become the next big platform:
Adobe is moving into developer tools in a big way to support its grab for mindshare in the interactive/rich web application space where much of the excitement lately seems to be. Some people think of this as Browser Wars 2.0, but I think it is more fundamental than that. Here are the players. Microsoft is putting massive resources behind Silverlight. Sun is trying to take Java to the next level with Java FX. Mozilla is trying to improve its position through AJAX, Canvas support, and better offline support. And Adobe is leaning hard on Flash, Adobe Integrated Runtime or AIR (formerly code-named Apollo), and Flex. My money is on Adobe simply because of those two invisible weapons, PDF and Flash.
What could PDF, Adobe’s Portable Document Format, possibly have to do with this? It’s a 30 megabyte download living right now in more than a BILLION computers. Same for Flash — a BILLION computers. That’s more than 60 megabytes of Adobe code living in nearly every computer on every desktop or laptop in the world — greater market penetration by far than even Windows enjoys. And what’s IN there? Nobody outside Adobe really knows. Is there room in that 60 megabytes for the Adobe Reader, Flash, and a few hooks or applets Adobe might throw in to assist with some future product or service roll out? Sure, why not? That’s the power of invisibility.
See full article.