The 2009  NAB convention ended yesterday in Las Vegas.   With 25% of this year’s attendees coming from outside the US, and with terrestrial/cable /satellite television organizations together only representing 24% of this year’s exhibitors, maybe the name “National Association of Broadcasters” is a bit misleading – but nevertheless, the NAB show remains a major perennial media event.

Like this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (also held in Las Vegas), NAB 2009 saw attendance down about 20% due to the current economic climate – still, almost 84,000 people attended.  On the internet video front, Adobe’s announcement concerning its intention to get its ubiquitous Flash web video platform onto consumer electronics devices such as televisions and set-top boxes seems to be the big story.  In my opinion, though, while these analysts were covering the right company, they were covering the wrong story: by limiting their focus to the frankly old news (already mentioned several times here on digitalmissive) that Adobe had plans to embed Flash onto CE chip sets, they missed the gradual transformation of Adobe into an open source software  company.

While both Adobe and Microsoft are members of the Open Video Player Initiative started by Akamai 3 yrs ago, this initiative appears to have been “all hat, no cattle”, as we say in New Jersey.   Adobe has since been moving towards open standards on its own:

• In 2008, the company removed all licensing restrictions from its SWF and FLV file formats
• This year, Adobe will publish the entire specification of its RTMP protocol
• The API (programming interface) for the Flash Player will be published later this year
• Most importantly, Adobe now has an open standards initiative of its own: the Open Screen Project.   Like IBM, Adobe is embracing open source software as a lever to (as Adobe puts it) “accelerate momentum” of its technologies, including the open Strobe framework slated for release in late 2009.  So far, the strategy appears to be working – among others, Open Screen partners include:
  • CE OEMs:  LG, Samsing, Sony, & Toshiba
  • Chip Makers:  Intel, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, & Motorola
  • Mobile Devices:  Nokia, Palm, & Ericsson

I think Adobe fully understands the importance of the intersection of CE and internet technology, and is well-positioning itself to enjoy the same level of ubiquity there they already enjoy on the web browser.  As far as monetization goes, I would imagine the company plans to give almost everything on the client side away to sell server software licenses.

Left outside the Adobe’s big tent are Apple (which has competing media platform Quicktime and still refuses to put Flash on the iPhone) and Microsoft (which has competing media platform Silverlight).

It’s rare when an evolving technology a) leaves Apple and Microsoft with  something in common, and  b) doesn’t directly involve Google – but there you go.