The last letter from Steve Jobs was downright scathing, but it also had a lot of issues that people had trouble reconciling with. The reason for this was that Jobs made some very strong claims in regards to being “open”, Flash’ compatibility with touch control and more; while the statements were delivered in an impressive manner, it did not take long for the people to realize that his words were far from the facts they seemed to be.
Adobe naturally had to respond to the situation and thus, Chuck Geschke and John Warnock (Adobe’s cofounders) decided to finally make their stand:
“Adobe’s business philosophy is based on a premise that, in an open market, the best products will win in the end — and the best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors.”
“That, certainly, was what we learned as we launched PostScript® and PDF, two early and powerful software solutions that work across platforms. We openly published the specifications for both, thus inviting both use and competition. In the early days, PostScript attracted 72 clone makers, but we held onto our market leadership by out-innovating the pack.”
“More recently, we’ve done the same thing with Adobe® Flash® technology. We publish the specifications for Flash — meaning anyone can make their own Flash player. Yet, Adobe Flash technology remains the market leader because of the constant creativity and technical innovation of our employees.”
“We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.”
“In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company.”
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