Adobe Migrating to WebRTC?
The company behind the abomination called Flash? Adobe.
The logic then, is that when Adobe moves to WebRTC, there’s no reason anymore to try and run real time communications related use cases with Flash. Correct?
Well… it is already happening.
Guillaume Privat, Director and General Manager of the Adobe Connect business unit, spilled the beans: Adobe Connect “plans to be ready to support HTML5” “when WebRTC matures”.
AT&T. Cisco. Microsoft. Comcast. Facebook. And now Adobe. An interesting 2015.
Some thoughts about this partial announcement by Adobe (read it all – it is short and rather interesting):
- Why did Adobe go with WebRTC?
- The promise of HTML5 content working across desktops and mobile devices
- Portability – cross platform development and deployment
- The same thing I always say – if you plan on developing any communication service these days, WebRTC needs to be your first choice and the question should by why you haven’t picked it
- Their future plans are broad, and rather simplistic – use HTML5/WebRTC wherever to bring feature compatibility to what Adobe Connect is capable of today
- Somehow, Adobe places WebRTC as an immature technology. While I see this type of thinking in many places, I believe it is short sighted at best. Those who deem it immature probably aren’t wielding it correctly
- Worse – maturity in WebRTC means “once HTML5 can support large scale collaboration across browsers”
- Will Microsoft Edge imminent support of it enough?
- Will Adobe wait until benevolent Apple introduces WebRTC in Safari?
- Will Adobe be adamant that WebRTC must run on the older Internet Explorer browsers before it is mature enough for Adobe?
- Or is there some other arbitrary rule at play? Maybe the development time inside Adobe Connect’s team?
- The context of the announcement is odd
- It resides on a blog that talks about use cases deployed by Adobe Connect and features introduced
- This announcement is neither
- It says “we know there’s WebRTC and we plan on using it. One day. When we think it is time. Maybe. If we get there. And browsers support it”
- Not sure how should I respond to it. Should I use Adobe Connect now that I know they plan on using WebRTC in some far flung future? Should I sit and wait until they do? Should I rejoice? Should I be worried about my existing Adobe Connect integration?
At least we have another incumbent openly validate WebRTC as a technology. I wonder when the rest of the ostriches burying their head in the sand out there will also come to their senses.
Adobe is abandoning Flash. Shouldn’t you be doing the same?
I think you put too much stock on Adobe being unified in its thinking. Adobe Flash is a foundational product. Adobe Connect is an application. They can embrace HTML5 in Adobe Connect without abandoning Flash. I think that Big Blue Button, an open source alternative to Adobe Connect, has already done this.
Maybe I do. Most large companies aren’t unified in their thinking. Adobe shouldn’t be different.
I still see this as yet another sign of weakness in Flash.