Mobile Flash Comes to an End, Silverlight May be Following

It has long been my position that Flash and Silverlight based online maps should die in a fire. Not necessarily all of them. Just all the ones I have seen.

A couple of news stories came across my desk this week that further reinforces that opinion.

• Adobe has abandoned mobile Flash development. Adobe will no longer continue to "adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations," instead focusing on alternative application packaging programs and the HTML5 protocol. Flash on the Desktop will have a long death spiral, but with Adobe shifting to HTML5 toolsets, one would have to be a hard-core Flash developer to not notice the vultures circling. Edit: it looks like Adobe is dumping Flex as well - sorry Flex devs.
• Several industry insiders and partners for the last few weeks have heard from their own Microsoft sources that there won't be new versions of Silverlight released after Silverlight 5. If you are surprised by that, you shouldn't be - the signs (IE's HTML5 push, Microsoft's recent downplaying of Silverlight, the new Windows 8 interface, etc.) have been everywhere. End of the road folks. Nothing to see here, please move along.