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Is Apple Shunning Flash Because of Mobile Advertising?

Is Apple Shunning Flash Because of Mobile Advertising?

Is Apple shunning Flash on the iPhone and iPad because of concerns over mobile advertising, and not–like Steve Jobs says–because of technology reasons?

Simeon Simeonov, founder and CEO of consulting firm FastIgnite, seems to think so. Simeonov wrote an editorial yesterday in VentureBeat claiming that Apple banished Flash from its two mobile devices because the company wants to give itself “breathing room” in the mobile advertising market.

In explaining how the move gives Apple breathing room, Simeonov wrote that the Flash banishment “[forces] developers to heavily, perhaps irreversibly, invest in Apple’s platform and in the process avoid alternative tool, services and runtime platforms, an area where Apple has traditionally had no expertise and where Adobe and others have a substantial advantage.”

He adds that it’s not just an Apple vs. Adobe issue either:

The advertising angle is additional proof that this isn’t just about Apple vs. Adobe. Jobs is too good a strategist for that. This is as much about Apple vs. Microsoft and Apple vs. Google. If Apple can successfully defend itself from Adobe, a company that is much smaller and more dependent on the Apple ecosystem, it will establish a valuable precedent. Apple then may have a chance to defend itself from Microsoft, whose Silverlight platform (a competitor to Flash) is steadily gaining distribution and developers. Then, it may be able to carve a large and growing advertising niche with some barriers to entry for Google and others.

Definitely seems like Simeonov might be onto the real reason why we aren’t going to see Flash on the iPhone or iPad anytime soon. The mobile advertising market is going to grow exponentially in the coming years, and Apple trying to gain a foothold in the market, by any means possible, doesn’t seem surprising.

[Thanks: http://friskymongoose.com]

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