Adobe targets Apple in ad campaign launched today, publishes open letter from founders
If you're reading Engadget today (and let's be honest, you're reading it right now), then you might have noticed that Adobe has launched a pretty full-force campaign to call out Apple on its anti-Flash mission. If you don't know what we're talking about, it's the advertisements that start with "We [heart] Apple." Along with the web ads, the company has also snagged a full page in today's Washington Post to address the battle in which the two companies have been engaged. All of this links back to a new statement from Adobe, as well as an open letter from founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock ("Our thoughts on open markets"), addressing Apple's recent spate of clear and direct attacks against the company and its products. Most of the reading should sound familiar to those of us who've been following the saga, but here are a few choice quotes from the duo:
We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company - no matter how big or how creative - should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web.
When markets are open, anyone with a great idea has a chance to drive innovation and find new customers. Adobe's business philosophy is based on a premise that, in an open market, the best products will win in the end - and the best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors.
We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web - the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.
In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody - and everybody, but certainly not a single company.
So, it's clear this issue isn't going to die out any time soon, and it's also clear that Adobe is going to go to great lengths to defend and protect its cash-cow. Of course, if they really want this message to hit home to the core iPad and iPhone users out there, they're going to need to run that ad in HTML5.
Note: As you should know, the ad sales and editorial teams at Engadget are separate entities, so this campaign was as much a surprise to us as it probably is to you!
