The Adobe - Apple Flame War | Monday Note by Jean-Louis Gassée

> **Steve Jobs has seen enough in his 34 years in the computer business** to know, deeply, that he doesn’t want to be at the mercy of cross-platform tools that could erase Apple’s competitive advantage. He doesn’t want to wait and beg and bitch and moan until Adobe supports the registers on Apple’s player organ. (Diplomatically or not, [Jobs recently called Adobe “lazy”](http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/googles-dont-be-evil-mantra-is-bullshit-adobe-is-lazy-apples-steve-jobs/)… But that was *intra muros*, in an internal all-hands company meeting.) > Does anyone mind that Jobs won’t sacrifice the truly strategic differentiation of the iPhone platform on the altar of cross-platform compatibility? Customers and critics don’t. They love the end-result. [Nor do developers](http://www.businessinsider.com/adobe-is-freaked-out-by-apples-move-developers-arent-too-worried-yet-2010-4?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+typepad%252Falleyinsider%252Fsilicon_alley_insider+%2528Silicon+Alley+Insider%2529&utm_content=Google+Reader). There are 185,000 apps in Apple’s App Store, 3,500 already for the iPad. Philanthropists at [Kleiner Perkins](http://www.kpcb.com/index.html), the noted Valley VC firm, are doubling (to $200M) the size of their [iFund](http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/), a fund dedicated to iPhone and now iPad investments. > > **Let’s perform a thought experiment. By the end of 2010, there will be more than 100 million iPhone OS devices** (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad). You’re the webmeister at an important content site. The boss comes in and asks you why you’re not supporting the iPhone OS devices. ‘Our stuff is all Flash-based, chief, those guys don’t run Flash’. You’re about to become the ex-webmeister. The boss, a really patient sort, asks you to “think different” about all these “non-compliant” customers, each of whom has an iTunes account backed by a credit card, and has developed the habit (encouraged by Apple) of paying for content. So, one more time, with feeling: What’s your answer? Well put.