NxtGen Media - The Freeman View

Long Live Flash

September 8, 2009 on 9:48 am | In Rich Internet Applications, flash |

Been reading here and there about Flash being on its way out. Considering that I do a lot of my work in Flash, that kind of talk is disconcerting to say the least. I really enjoy using Flash. It is not the end all be all tool, but it can do a lot and does cover a great deal of territory. I am not married to a particular technology, and I am not religious about the technologies I use. If something else were to come along that does the job better, and has the penetration of Flash, then I would move on in a heartbeat. Flash is simply a tool, and a pretty good one at that.

That being said, Flash does cover a lot of territory, some of it well, and others not so well. For the stuff I am doing for pay, (multimedia based e-learning modules) I can’t see a better or more succinct way to address projects of this type. Flash is simply ideal for what we are doing. 2D, video, animation, and interactivity, complete with database access is just what the client ordered. The fact that we can produce RIAs that encapsulate all of the required functionality in a single organic web interface is very compelling indeed. In addition, one can roll the whole package into a desktop app with little effort. Flash just works, and as long as we code it right and don’t push too hard, it works well. For business and education it can be very effective.

For the gaming side, Flash’s 2d is pretty good. There is some great stuff out there. 3D is so-so. The 3D we’re seeing in Flash is astounding (for Flash), but that’s just it. It’s astounding for Flash, and not for the gaming world. Does it really matter? I really think it does, and is a factor in the longevity of Flash.  If Flash player 11 can make game developers happy in this version, then I think it will be around for the long haul. If not, then maybe the naysayers are right.

The Flash environment has significantly improved with every new release. At some point, it stands to reason (we’d like to hope) that the Flash player could rise to the level of a decent quality gaming platform.  With the big corporate players now starting to pay attention to this plug-in space, anything is possible, and anyone with the goods could take most if not all the marbles.

With all the talk of cloud computing of late, it seems to me that Flash has a good start on the tools for making these ‘games and apps in the clouds’. With a little more work and power to the player, Adobe could potentially gain strong positioning in mobile and games as well as business apps. With all that potential, I just don’t see Flash going away quietly into the night anytime soon, but it does not take a fortune teller to see that contenders have popped up and are vying for this space that Flash used to exclusively hold.

-DCF

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