Adobe Boasts High Flash Adoption

Written by Ryan Lawler

Friday, January 30. 2009 at 08:45 AM EST Post a comment

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Adobe Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE) is talking up the rate of adoption of its newest version of its Flash Player, claiming that after just two months the plugin has found its way onto more than half of all Internet-connected computers.

Adobe expects that Flash Player 10, which was released last October, is already on more than 55 percent of PCs in "mature markets." Adobe expects that adoption rate to increase to 80 percent by the second quarter of 2009 -- a rate of adoption that would surpass that of all previous Flash releases.

The news comes as Adobe has made a push, not just onto desktops, but also to get its Flash technology embedded onto consumer electronic (CE) devices. In January, the company announced partnerships with CE chip manufacturers Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM), and Sigma Designs Inc. (Nasdaq: SIGM).

While Adobe is the market leader, in terms of desktop adoption of its rich media client, it's seeing increasing competition from Move Networks Inc. and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s Silverlight, particularly in the streaming of live events. 

Move Networks declined to pinpoint the number of desktops it has been installed on or its overall market share of the online video market. However, the company reports that it saw 100 percent growth in the number of people watching Internet video delivered with its technology -- from 25 million unique viewers in 2007 to 55 million unique viewers in 2008.

Meanwhile, Microsoft says that Silverlight 2, the most recent version of its video client, has been downloaded and installed on more than 100 million PCs since its launch in October 2008. The company claims that 25 percent of all consumers have access to a computer with Silverlight technology installed.

The software giant is trying to push adoption even further, by bundling the Silverlight software into installations of its Windows Live Messenger Beta release, as well as through an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL).