However, I think this was one of the most important meetings I have ever been in between an analyst and a vendor. It was honest, open and direct – very direct at times. But it also laid the ground work for what is (I like to think) an honest, open and direct relationship between RedMonk and Adobe. We might not always see eye-to-eye, but we know we can debate and discuss and respect each others opinions.

Thanks to all involved!

T

You were indeed a great representative for Adobe to the development community. I remember when you came out and did the keynote at Flashbelt a few years ago when Flex 2 was first released. It’s great that someone at the VP level still took the time to speak directly to customers. Your personal touch will be missed.

All the best,
Danny Patterson

Is it too circular to comment on a blog posting about me commenting on blog postings? -;)

Thanks for the kind words. It has been a pleasure getting to know the Redmonk team.

I recall well the night we first met in person in Las Vegas. Earlier in the day Cote had written a post arguing that Adobe was “forking the web”. You and me had it out on what we had not (yet) done around opening PDF. Sure kept me on my toes!

Keep up your good work. I am leaving Adobe, but with only great feelings abouts the work there over the last years and the great people carrying it forward. No plans at this time–taking some time off after 16 years at Macromedia/Adobe–but I will keep Redmonk/Greenmonk in my RSS reader and keep up with your thoughts…

Cheers,
David

I’m really bummed that I never got the chance to work more closely with him as part of Adobe. He’s an awesome example for an executive.

Now with Gears, Air, and Silverlight we have options that let us run disconnected from the net. That sounds great, but have we just re-created the security issues we had with client/server? Will it lead to a new wave of lockdowns?

Historical, topical, interesting and an opportunity to turn the page on the evolution of the internet app – I remember first discussing RIA and Adobe’s play in this arena with you and many other fans and non-fans years ago and it truly was an engaged (pre-RIA definition) discussion back then. Two things:

1) I think not just executives, but all passionate employees should be able and willing to enter the discussion, add to the research and ensure that the agenda, motivation, technology specifics and strategic patterns are being discussed appropriately. What I loved about David’s response here was that he did not wax defensive, but supported a significant change having transpired in the evolution of the internet application. He took appropriate credit for this as well, and in fact Adobe continues to “eat their own caviar” on this vision with things like AMP, Kuler, Photoshop Express and other interesting projects.

2) The definition of RIA, and the ensuing heated and animated discussions about it, along with the emergence of Silverlight, JavaFX and other frameworks that support this type of development are proof that there was a spark in the RIA idea worth emulating – and that perhaps the original vision of this was not just based on Flash, but a broader appeal to the internet community to do more with what we had. With so much of the vision around “human to service interaction” and “self learning” and “enterprise class” that folks like James Ward, Duane Nickull and Christian Cantrell respectively have yet to be realized, I find it a bit unfortunate that we haven’t gotten past the “slick UI” and “widget” discussion and really propogated the patterns to an enterprise level nor made it readily available on mobile – Open Screens is another step in the right direction though.

I used to work for Adobe and was on David Mendel’s team along with James, Christian and Duane. If there was a problem with vision or how Adobe handled the discussion of RIA, it definitely wasn’t in this group of people in my experience.

I feel like someone (still) from Adobe should get the first comment on this post, but I just happen to be awake first