And because Adobe didn’t know how to manage this news to well here is my version of how the announcement should have been done (they should learn from other industries):

After we successfully manage to penetrate almost all the mobile platform and we offered to mobile users and developers the necessary tools for a stunning experience using the new features of Flash Player 11, Adobe is going green and will invest more in experimental development on mobile’s browser and will continue our involvement in Flash Player for PC browser while Adobe Air will still be a powerful tool for mobile applications

The damage was done, people started to take drastic decision without reading all the important bits and making subjective affirmation based on their personal interests. That’s why in the next few lines I’ll try to explain why Adobe’s announcement shouldn’t affect anyone:

Flash Player on Mobile browsers

The forbidden plugin on Apple’s products, Adobe tried with this to show the world that Flash can reach all smartphones. And in this moment the mobile plugin of Flash Player has all the features needed for a developer to create a proper application. By closing the development for it, Adobe is trying to cut some costs and realize that they don’t have to who to prove that Flash Player can work on any smartphone (RIP Steve Jobs).

Flash VS HTML5

The endless discussion, the best way to explain it will be with the next comparison:

“Between a normal car and an electric car, even if electric car will be the future, in this moment I will drive a normal car.”

The legacy

Another reason for closing the development for Flash player on mobile browser. Like all other programming languages, there will always be applications that were badly implemented. Worst happen when in the last years everyone made application targeted for PC, is hard to have the same functionality on smartphone. The best example is the Web 2.0 button style, with hover effect: how the user will see the hover effect on a mobile?!

Target User

Any application needs to be targeted for a group of users. These users don’t care about the technology used, all they need is their expectations to be fulfilled and their experience to be unique. In the latest years to cover as much as possible having the same look & feel all over the Internet, without depending on the user browser, screen resolution, or OS was easily done with Flash, but this doesn’t mean that Flash has set a monopole. The Internet is filled with website done in HTML. But here again, HTML is comparable with an electric car, at this moment is not evolved as Flash/Flex/Air is to target the maximum amount of users on PC or mobile, as fast as possible.

Good team of developers

I truly believe that a successful application stands behind a good team of developers and an understanding client. If you are a client and you are already lucky to work with a good team don’t lose it. But if your team gave you some doubts and some twists in their decision (like automatically changing their mind about a technology) you should think about it. Don’t be paranoiac, but don’t let yourself lied. Any good consultant or developer shouldn’t rush into drastic decisions based on a Saturday post. They should have waited and following the missed pieces and they might have seen Adobe’s green prototypes (a new ‘green’ engine Falcon, a hybrid one – falconJS and the ultimate green phoneGap).

Conclusion

Adobe’s might have the power to invest in prototypes, might also have the clients for it, but for the masses, for the 80-90% of the cases I do believe that the Flash/Flex/Air is the best approach. And I promise, when the first “green car” with all the features will be available for the masses I will definitely purchase it. Until then, I’ll be green only for getting some small groceries on a bicycle, or taking a walk for relaxation.

Adobe’s stopped the development of Flash Player plugin in mobile browsers, but this doesn’t mean that in the future, if smartphones will evolve as it did in the last few years, to see Adobe forced to reinvest in the plugin if is needed.

Is very hard to say that a technology is dead, especially when it has a 98% penetration. Maybe Flash will die, maybe HTML5 might be in future the best solution. But in this moment, Flash is a powerful technology and can still bring awesome experience for the end-user, while next version of Flash Player is looking promising.

Flex Framework continues to be one of the best solutions for targeting your application cross-platform on mobile devices or PC, depending on your project’s requirements. And the future looks bright, with Spoon Project and the long way possibility of using FalconJS cross-compiler.

So, if you need a simple slideshow page, or a small animation with no smart functionality, maybe HTML5 is the best choice. If you want something more complex than Flash might be a solution.

And please, never decide the future of your project on the cheapest solution, there are plenty of reasons on why a technology might be the best choice.

A good developer can easily change the programming language. But the decision of a client shouldn’t change your mind about what technology to use. Each project is different and you need to decide which technology to use best based on the specifications, not based on new releases or popular technology in this moment.

Until HTML5 will be an OOP language, cross-platform compatible on all browsers - PC or mobile – with the same performances, without being rude, is the same old sh*t upgraded. Flash (Actionscript 3) had this since 2006.

I really think that HTML5 is the future but I can’t agree is the new sh*t.