Ben Garney gives a presentation on the current state and future of Flash. He acknowledges that Adobe has moved away from Flash and HTML5 is positioned as the future standard, but argues that Flash still has life remaining. Garney advises diversifying one's skills and focusing on future proofing rather than reacting strongly to any single technology's rise or fall, as platforms regularly change over time but skillsets can endure.

1. It’s The End Of The World
As We Know It, And I Feel Fine.
By Ben Garney
For latest slides & more info, visit http://bengarney.com/
Saturday, March 3, 2012

2. Introduction
• Who am I?
• What’s going on?
• Where are we going?
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3. Hill Valley, 1955
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4. GarageGames, 2006
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5. Saturday, March 3, 2012

6. Recent Events
• Adobe drops Flash in mobile browsers.
• Financial analyst call in January.
• Open sourcing Flex.
• Flash Player Roadmap last month.
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7. Flash in the Market
• Flash has a great position.
• But right behind it...
• Corona, Moai, Unity
• Scaleform, Iggy, In-house tech.
• HTML5, Emscripten, Swiffy, Gordon
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8. Erosion
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9. The Flash Tripod
• Tools - Flash Builder, Flash Pro
• Runtime - Player, AIR
• Platform - SWF, AVM+, APIs
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10. Declining
Assets
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11. “Declining” Outcomes
• Led to GG sale to IAC for ~$50M...
• Left and started PushButton Labs...
• Torque survived shutdown, still selling!
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12. “Declining Asset”
is a label to help make decisions.
Not business reality.
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13. Back to Adobe...
• Writing on the wall.
• Long term winner: HTML5
• But Flash still lives....
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14. Community
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15. Tech Communities
• Look out for the vocal minority.
• The people you hear from are emotionally
invested.
• Users have a limited perspective.
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16. Saturday, March 3, 2012

17. Reaction
• End of the world!
• Flash is dead!
• Wait, are we talking about
our ex-girlfriend, or
software?
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18. Reports Of My Death...
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19. Adobe’s Outs
• Replace Player with HTML5.
• Leverage tools to target JS.
• And the subtle play...
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20. Adobe’s Outs
• HTML5 is the future.
• Open standard.
• Public opinion supports it!
• Wide deployment.
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21. Adobe’s Outs
• HTML5 is the future?
• Vendor friction.
• Mixed priorities.
• JS is not great for large apps.
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22. Adobe’s Outs
• Take advantage of HTML5 boom.
• Take Flash off the agenda...
• And let it fly under the radar.
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23. Flash Outcomes
• Could die quietly...
• Could maximize revenue in mid-term...
• Could allow a renaissance.
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24. Future Proofing
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25. Build it,
and they will come.
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26. Diversify.
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27. Platforms Die.
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28. (And I Feel Fine.)
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32. Conclusion
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33. Conclusion
• Flash is a “declining asset”...
• (Whatever that means.)
• Leverage Flash as long as you can!
• Your skillsets are not...
• Future proof yourself.
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34. Conclusion
• Thanks for coming!
• http://bengarney.com
• @bengarney
• Questions?
Saturday, March 3, 2012