How PhoneGap impacts how we evangelize Flex
DISCLAIMER: The following is my personal opinion and not necessarily that of my employer (Adobe Systems, Inc.).
The PhoneGap announcement at MAX 2011 really got a lot of people excited (including me!), and it raised a few questions about how it changes our jobs as evangelists. PhoneGap gives us the means to build cross-platform apps with HTML5 with hooks into the device’s native APIs (see my previous post). Having new things to show off to developers and customers is always a good thing, especially when this new thing lets us stretch our new HTML5 muscles on mobile devices. I’m already playing around with using Adobe Edge to animate some interactions in a mobile app (stay tuned!).
As a technical evangelist talking to developers, having PhoneGap in my arsenal removes the ”HTML vs Flash/Flex” religion from the discussion and allows us to have a real conversation about which technology is the best solution for the requirements at hand.
Here’s an analogy: If I worked for a company that sells tile flooring, it would be tough for me to convince someone that tile is the best choice for a particular room because they will expect me to say that tile is best for everything. Conversely, if I worked for a company that sells wood flooring, they expect me to say wood is best. However, if I work for a company that sells both types of flooring, I can have a real discussion about which is best on a room by room basis because I will have credibility in both types of flooring.
Now the conversation starts at a higher level and allows me to be more effective at demonstrating the value that Adobe offers to anyone building mobile apps.
There are clearly use-cases where PhoneGap will indeed be the better choice because of the lightweight nature, broader device support and the availability of the required skillset to build these types of apps. However, there will continue to be use-cases that go beyond the capabilities of HTML5 and will demand the more capable Flash/Flex platform. Features such as collaboration, complex UIs, handling of large data sets, real-time data processing, and rich data visualization are just a few examples where HTML5 simply won’t cut it today. However, as the capabilities of the platforms evolve, Adobe is in a good position to provide solutions across the spectrum.
Our team is in rapid learning mode now, but that’s why we do this job. New products, new technologies and new ways of approaching problems is what fuels us. We’re basically professional learners. During the next few months, you’ll see more content related to PhoneGap as well as the new features coming in Flex 4.6, and much more. Fun, fun!
Greg, this is a really good post and I’m really delighted with Adobe’s move of acquiring PhoneGap.
I haven’t been at MAX this year but I watched online materials and later on I was pretty shocked with several posts and articles about the future of Flex/Flash. There are lot of posts on Adobe feeds how we should forget Flash in web browser and switch to HTML 5 and related technologies. Appereantly, we should use Flash for out-of-browser experience and for mobile development.
It’s funny to see how two years ago people were sceptic about Flash on mobile devices and now people are saying that Flash doesn’t have history in browsers and has a future on mobile devices. The future of web are Flash and HTML5. I’m still not convinced you can high quality banner without Flash and spend the same amount of time by using HTML5. Also, I’m still convinced that Flex is the best tool for creating RIA interface but also I believe that HTML is better tool for website development than Flex. We need to use both technologies in order to achieve better results and every technologies has it’s pros and cons.
Cheers,
Ivan
Flex 4.5 ACE
“However, there will continue to be use-cases that go beyond the capabilities of HTML5 and will demand the more capable Flash/Flex platform. Features such as collaboration, complex UIs, handling of large data sets, real-time data processing, and rich data visualization are just a few examples where HTML5 simply won’t cut it today. However, as the capabilities of the platforms evolve, Adobe is in a good position to provide solutions across the spectrum.”
Adding this to the keynote would have taken 10 seconds and avoided all of the uproar you are seeing in the community. It would have also avoided the damage to Flex’s brand that was done, and would have not made our jobs of selling Flex harder, as is the case in the post MAX reality.
Greg,
We as adobe’s products developers including lcds, flex, coldfusion community were expecting some insite about mentioned technologies. Yes the big buzz is html5, fine i get that, what about who can power HTML? The world is not only animation or gaming, enterprise companies are looking for solution to there business need. If we look to Max 2010 videos we will see the balance of covering all technology aspects. We invested alot of time, money to learn adobes product and we all love it, I think we deserve the love back by giving us transparent vision to delepers road map. I can read between your lines you felt tat gap or dis connection at least with developers prospect.
html5 vs Flex is not a honest technical discussion at Adobe. They are business. Flex is mature and it has reached the top of it success. I think Flex product managers have a hard task to improve it and make it more appealing to new customers…. how to improve something that is almost perfect?
On the other hand, html5 represents a big opportunity, with a lot of improvements pending to come and a lot of future developers (millions?). It will easy adding more and more features and find a lot o people wiling pay for them… Adobe can make big business around it…. billions of dollars are calling Adobe (and others).
In the meanwhile, Adobe plays anywhere. Flex is still interesting for many companies and Adobe will still sell FB… until the Flex market share significantly decreases (2-3 years?) and mobiles devices market share grow, and grow and grow. Then Adobe will be there and they will be ready to sell PhoneGap based development tools. What is better? No matter. What does it fill business needs in the best way? it only matters for a while. Adobe is very interested in Html5 success because they will earn much money in that way. This is not a technical question.
The problem is that donating Flex to Apache is a bullshit if the required binaries (AIR) to run it and the the development tool (FB) remain proprietary. Only when the runtime becomes open source, Flex could survive. But Adobe only will donate the runtime after they are sure that there are no risks for they new business (html5+PhoneGap).