Scribd Ditches Flash for HTML5

Score one for Apple and the rest of the HTML5 crowd after Scribd, a popular social publishing site, announced it was abandoning Adobe System’s Flash software for the HTML5, a move that Apple CEO Steve Jobs says will become all too common in the months and years ahead.

As DevX reports, the war of words and applications between Apple and Adobe continues to escalate, forcing developers, enterprise companies and consumers to make tough choices to access the latest multimedia apps and content.

While Scribd executives acknowledge that Flash is “a terrific technology,” it still presents problems for some online publishers because it requires putting content in a separate application for posting on the Web.

This latest salvo figures to be a controversial and contentious battle of wills and developer allegiance for the foreseeable future.


There’s a bit more momentum behind Steve Jobs’s insistence that Adobe Flash isn’t keeping up with the times.

The Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO’s controversial decision to keep Adobe’s Flash software off the iPhone and iPad resulted in criticism that the company was unfairly restricting developers from using it to create programs for the device. But Jobs fired back with a number of claims — disputed by Adobe — that he said motivated Apple’s move.

Now Scribd, a popular social publishing site, has announced its abandoning Flash after three years of development using Adobe’s (NASDAQ: ADBE) popular software in favor of HTML5.

Jobs said earlier that, like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and others, Apple is betting on the emerging HTML5 standard for Web content development. The difference is Google and other HTML5 supporters like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) also continue to work with Adobe and support Flash.



Read the full story (free registration required) at DevX:


Flash Loses to HTML5 on Scribd Site

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