Flash Fights For Its Life

Being a conscious web developer, seeing designs that work on any conceivable devise that can view web pages is a goal set as standard on any design project. However it seems a shame that the unwillingness to allow Flash on Iphones is not favoring the designer or arguably the consumer. In an earlier post I suggested that Flash may see difficult times ahead with HTML5 already emerging in some popular browsers. So the lack of support on Iphones does not help either.

There may however be some good news on the horizon for Adobe on the mobile front. The extremely popular business phone Blackberry has announced a deal that will see Flash on their devices.

However reports suggest that Microsoft have sealed rights to develop Silverlight for use on Blackberry phones as well. This should prove an interesting pairing as Microsoft show no signs of slowing down with Silverlight; details have already beginning to emerge on what will be in Version 4. One thing that seems to be in Microsoft’s favor is their determination to create a Flash type of application that is also SEO friendly.

Something that people should be aware of is that Microsoft has invested heavily in the Search Engine aspect of the internet. If they do succeed in making a sandbox format application SEO friendly, then they are in a powerful position to force the likes of Google to conform to the standards it decides to implement. Not doing so would leave Bing in an unusual position of being able to locate aspects of the internet that Google can’t.

Returning to the Iphone, as Apple seems in no mood to change its market position regarding Flash support; it will just have to hope that the market continues its love affair with the device. From a web design perspective the Blackberry looks the most promising, as it intends to leave the choice of what technologies to use down to the client and developer.