Really, I always assumed that Adobe successfully mitigated all the revenue risk by selling recurring Creative Studio/Cloud licenses, and that Flash was not a big chunk of revenue anymore. I remember Steve Jobs planning to kill Adobe or at least news blog reporting such intentions.[0]
Adobe stock has done pretty well over last half a decade even when compared with Google.[1]
[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/the-real-reason-steve-jobs-wa...
[1] https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AADBE%2CGOOGL&ei=2j...
http://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGLDI&ei=Tk1WWKnmH...
I reported some but they did nothing about it.
I work in finance. It's a last resort. It should be front page, but it was ignored for too many years. I think I see it once or twice a year, now.
I end up using my broker for charting, as most of the free ones suck.
1. It's because Google finance is old and probably forgotten. Really answers the OP question why it's not a good idea to kill flash right now.
2. Have been trading for a while and can tell that the performance of that chart beat the hell out of any JavaScript charting tool out there. It's interesting that JS/HTML 5 is all the hype now but it's still lagging behind a 10 year old technology.
Adobe can stand to have a rougher time of it, IMO...
This is why Australians have fought hard against geoblocking, and on similar lines why SciHub is around.
I have zero sympathy for Adobe.
Not true at all - their share price has more than tripled in the last decade [0]. Web development was never a big part of Adobe's business. They were trying, because it's similar to their other product areas, but they never got a big foothold, except Flash.
They still make a ton of popular software (Photoshop/Lightroom, Premiere, Acrobat, Illustator, After Effects, ...), and most of it is selling better than ever.
Flash In The Pan: Historical Lessons Of Adobe's Macromedia Acquisition https://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/flash-in-the-pa...
Adobe accused of software monopoly (not by Apple) http://www.techworld.com/news/apps/adobe-accused-of-software...
The Real Story Behind Adobe’s Failed Mobile Strategy http://www.businessinsider.com/the-underlying-story-behind-a...
Adobe recovering from massive Creative Cloud failure (one of several) https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/16/adobe-recovering-from-ma...
The Agonizingly Slow Decline Of Adobe Flash Player https://www.fastcompany.com/3049920/tech-forecast/the-agoniz...
And, finally, some commentary on the nature of Adobe's stock rise: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2014/02/28/why-is-ado...
Adobe Systems Inc. May Be Wildly Overvalued http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/09/29/adobe-syste...
Adobe Is Extremely Overvalued http://seekingalpha.com/article/2675425-adobe-is-extremely-o...
Adobe: Overvalued Despite Improving Profitability http://seekingalpha.com/article/3989440-adobe-overvalued-des...
But to be clearer, let's rephrase and say that "Adobe the company has had a rough decade".
slightly OT: what does "red pill" mean here in this context? A wake up call? Adobe employees chose to enter the real world?
I'm thinking a matrix reference but I find it hard to discern the sentiment behind it.
Well, they always had the option. It's not like they were working on open-sourcing it. It's an Open standard like Windows API EXEs are, you get half-support from Wine, but no guarantees.
Google Chrome doesn't use Adobe's Flash player, for instance, but a player called PepperFlash.
Adobe could very well discontinue developing their player, and just tell people to use an open source version. They could make it a marketing stunt by open sourcing their player for user freedom or some stuff like that.
My bad, I thought it was a completely different implementation.
In other words, for many important websites, Flash was the JavaScript of today (far reaching, with critical appearances in both the back and front-end).
Business Reasons: Adobe has had a rough decade. The Macromedia acquisition was a red pill (IMHO) for many at the company. The company has been dramatically slow in adapting to a new Web. Several major projects have failed or under-performed. All and all, Adobe has bigger fish to fry than to procure their developer base of a free/low-cost migration solution.
Other Reasons: 1)The nature of proprietary software - a lot has been written about this so feel free to look it up on the Web but basically its hard to just discontinue software without facing several non-trivial legal challenges. 2) The Steve Jobs Effect - or the curse of having a major figure accelerate the demise of a product that should have evolved into an open standard. 3) The Adobe Coldfusion Effect - Macromedia/Adobe has a product called ColdFusion Server that used Flash technology A LOT to differentiate itself, however the transition strategy adopted by Adobe didn't immediately discontinue Flash support for ColdFusion generated reports (for example) and such a direction made developers less likely to invest in a quicker migration to HTML5.
I feel your pain and, at this point, would also like to see Adobe pull the plug once and for all. But we live in a complicated world, for better or worse.