Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Adobe vs Microsoft battle turns to open source

April 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Adobe vs Microsoft battle turns to open source

TAGS: Open Source

Adobe open sources flex (as well as a growing list of other technologies). Microsoft responds by indicating it will open source some of its upcoming Silverlight product (which competes with Adobe's Flash technology).

There is a war emerging for Rich Internet Applications and the desktops that tie into them. And open source is quickly becoming the weapon of choice.

Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst with Forrester, said he sees the battle unfolding between Adobe with Apollo and Flex versus Microsoft with its Silverlight and XAML (Extensible Application markup Language). Additionally, Hammond said he believes the platform ubiquity of Microsoft's WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) versus the potential ubiquity of open source should be a real test of classic models versus new business models in software.

Hammond also said that until Adobe announced its open-source plans for Flex, "it was one proprietary technology against another, so there was no reason for the standards-based crowd to join either side. Now, the standards crowd has some interesting reasons to join the Adobe camp."

Indeed. And about time. You can't compete on the web without ubiquity. It's becoming increasingly difficult to achieve ubiquity without open source.

Ergo, the next big software battle is really about open source. I'm willing to bet that Adobe's corporate culture is more aligned with open source than Microsoft's at this point, but lots can change when money is on the line. And it is...in the billions.

Posted by Matt Asay on April 30, 2007 08:26 AM

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