Die Jungs von der "Wharton School of Business" haben ein sehr interessantes Interview mit dem Adobe-Chef Bruce Chizen gemacht. Im Mittelpunkt steht die "Engagement Plattform" (EP) das Softwareherstellers, die Microsoft das Fürchten lernen und der Beitrag von Adobe zum Web 2.0 werden soll. Zu den aktuellen Forderungen der Firma "Balthaser Online", die ein Patent auf Rich-Clients bekommen hat und nun auch von Adobe für Flash- und Flex-Anwendungen Lizenzgebühren fordert, hat er zwar nichts gesagt. Aber dafür zu den Zukunftsplänen des Unternehmens, das Ende letzten Jahres die Softwareschmiede Macromedia übernommen hatte.

Zur "Engagement Plattform" erläuterte Chizen zum Beispiel: "The combination of acrobat's PDF file format and the Adobe Reader with Flash's SWF file format and the Flash Player enables us to create an engagement platform. Think of it as a layer or a vehicle in which anybody can present information that could be engaged with in an interactive, compelling, reliable, relatively secure way - across all kinds of devices, all kinds of operating systems... If we execute appropriately we will be the engagement platform, or the layer, on top of anything that has an LCD display, any computing device - everything from a refrigerator to an automobile to a video game to a computer to a mobile phone."

Zur Entwicklung des "Universal Client" (Codenamen "Apollo") führte der Adobe-Chef aus: "We won't do a browser. But we do think that there are applications that need to run on the user's desktop client software that need to work in both a connected and a non-connected fashion, that require the richness of Flash, the reliability, the relative security, the layout capabilities of PDF - but also need to consume HTML. Imagine a ubiquitous client that allows you to do all three of those -- and then a series of programming tools, like Adobe's Flex, making it easy for anyone to develop applications for this ubiquitous client."

Auf die Frage, ob es sich bei "Apollo" um ein "Desktop Runtime Environment" handelt, antworte Chizen: "That's a good way of thinking about it, yes." Und zum Abschluss nochmal zum Thema EP und der Zukunftsstrategie von Adobe: "Just about everything you look at - a label, a movie you go to, a video on the web, a billboard, a sign when you get off the airplane - was probably touched by a piece of Adobe software. By having that engagement platform we could do more of this into the future. We can make our customers' lives easier and make the user's experience that much more interesting. All of us are being bombarded with information. I want a great experience, even if I am filling out a boring mortgage application or a tax form. I want a great experience. Ten years from now we will be providing that."

Wem das alles zu viel zu lesen ist, hier gibt es auch ein nettes Flash-Movie zum Thema "Engagement Platform".

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