April 9th, 2007
Marketers don't seem to get Apollo
Guy Smith thinks that while Apollo is interesting from a technical standpoint, it won't see much adoption because the software market is saturated and there are too may platforms already, so why should anyone choose Apollo. It's a classic case of 1) not understanding what Apollo does, and 2) not realizing how the software world is evolving. This quote seems to summarize Guy's thoughts:
The base question can be summed up "Does the market need yet another development platform?" Granted, cross platform agility within a familiar framework and end user interface is compelling. But the switching cost is high, and the non-Windows installed base is small. Adobe may be laying an egg in hopes that the chickens will soon arrive.
I think people do need another development platform. I was chatting with Alex Barnett today about how there are so many people on the extreme ends of the web versus desktop argument and not enough thinking about what's in between. Apollo is, in many ways, the first step for that in between. But at a technical level, one of the strengths of Apollo is that it doesn't really require a new development environment. The deployment model is new, but the development tools and the platform aren't at all. If you're building Flash or Ajax applications, which a lot of people are, then you can create an Apollo application easily.
The impression I get is that Guy sees Apollo as primarily a desktop technology. He compares it to Java, mentions Microsoft, and doesn't seem to grok that Apollo is more about the web than the desktop and that it ties in with your current web development infrastructure. This is what Adobe is going to have to drive home. Runtime penetration is going to be an issue initially, but once the overcome that, Apollo opens up a new way for web developers to reach users. People are going to do creative things with that, and the niche Apollo fills is going to get more attention.
Ryan Stewart, a Rich Internet Application developer and industry analyst, recently joined Adobe's Platform Team as a Rich Internet Application Evangelist. full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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