Adobe Looks to Future at Flashforward Conference
On Monday, the Flashforward Conference and Film Festival opened for nearly a full week’s worth of workshops, sessions, exhibits, and screenings. Now in its 15th edition in six years, the 2006 event marks the first time Flashforward has come to Seattle; previous shows have been held in London, Amsterdam, New York, and San Francisco. The conference, which runs through Thursday, is filled to standing room-only capacity, and includes attendees from as far away as Korea, Ghana, and South Africa.
Monday was filled with a number of workshops, all of which were well-attended, but the most anticipated event was the keynote by Kevin Lynch, senior vice president and chief software architect of Adobe’s platform business unit. This was to be the first keynote since the completion of the Adobe/Macromedia merger in December, and the sense of anticipation was palpable. There has been very little Flash-related news emanating from the newly expanded Adobe, and the faithful were gathered, clearly looking for a bit of reassurance that their favorite tool or platform wasn’t going to change or suddenly disappear.
After an introduction from Lynda Weinman of conference producer Lynda.com, Lynch bounced onto stage and launched a short video of a number of Adobe and Macromedia fans talking about how excited they were about the merger while they drank champagne. Equal parts relieved, ecstatic, cautious, and optimistic, the people in the video delivered exactly what the audience wanted to hear—a clear message that things were going to be okay, and that it was time to celebrate. This opening video was a smart move on Adobe’s part (or was it the Macromedia crowd behind this video?). It got the audience going and set up the rest of Lynch’s keynote, which was filled with good news.
Lynch began by mentioning that, in addition to the merger, it was also the 10th anniversary of Flash, and thanked everyone in attendance for all their work on the platform. Those of us in the streaming media world have to remember that the Adobe/Macromedia strategy is a platform strategy, not just a collection of useful tools. The variety of attendees and sessions only confirms this. The attendees are mostly developers, and the sessions generally involve screens full of ActionScript. Despite the obvious PR goals of Lynch’s keynote, this isn’t a sales conference—it’s a way for Adobe to talk, and listen, to their developers.
So the first order of business was to put everyone’s mind at ease. "We’re not going to screw anything up, such as putting the entirety of Acrobat into Flash" said Lynch. He said Adobe is dedicated to what it calls "The Engagement Platform," which includes print, Web, mobile, and broadcast. He then presented some figures about Flash 8 penetration. Historically, they’ve seen 80% adoption of the latest Flash release in about a year, according to a study by NPD Online, and 80% seems to be a tipping point for developers. The big news at this conference is that they’re seeing an accelerated adoption curve for Flash 8—they expect to be on 80% of all desktops in six months, or sometime in June 2006.