Here are my notes on the presentation from Mike Chambers of Adobe at the Atlanta Adobe Users Group Meeting: http://www.meetup.com/Adobe-User-Group-of-Atlanta/events/56200162/
Honestly, the announcement from Nov was handled horribly, it was a mess. Adobe has learned a lot and there have been many changes since then to keep this from happening again. They are really pushing transparency and have begun publishing white papers that explain the flash roadmap and explain plans and commitments.
These white papers put out by Adobe is definitive resource for flash. http://www.adobe.com/go/flashplatform_whitepapers
Flash runtimes is one shared core player. Flash player and adobe air both share same core.
Flash has filled many niches: animation, video, applications, games, rich media, art (Flash as an expressive medium).
While none of these functions are going anywhere, HTML5 is bringing a lot of this capability to browsers natively.
Adobe will now focus on advanced video and gaming in Flash as they are the areas that aren’t possible in web standards.
Introducing Premium features – set of features in API available for licensing. Only example for now is Stage3D used in conjunction with domainMemory API.
“I’m doing this for the love of flash, everyone else is doing it for the money” – Mike Chambers
The funding for the flash player is contradictory since more tools to publish to flash player have come out, it draws resources and funding away from flash player. This revenue sharing model allows for the player to remain funded in the current flash ecosystem.
Linux: Ppapi = pepper codename for browser plugin API which will let the player do it’s thing rather than worry about browser and OS. Working with google chrome on Linux already.
Windows 8: working closely with Microsoft to have support for flash player and air on Windows 8.
All updates will be added to the white paper (link above) along with the 2 year roadmap.
Thanks for visiting ATL and working on making this well understood and making Flash even better. I’m Always a fan of using flash when it’s the right tool for the job.