SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen came out yesterday to defend its Flash software and the developers who build it against a spittle filled rant from Steve Jobs.

Steve "lets sic the cops on the press" Jobs repeated all that he had said before, namely that Flash is not open, it's buggy, and it causes his toys to break and smells of wee.

Narayen gave a video interview to the Wall Street Journal, saying that Jobs had a completely different view of the world from Adobe.

He said that the world is multi-platform and that simply did not suit Steve Jobs' vision. Narayen said that Jobs should let consumers decide.

He pointed out that if the technology doesn't work, consumers won't choose it. The fact that people have built applications using Adobe's technology, the fact that they've deployed it, means that it benefits both publishers and consumers, he said.

"It doesn't benefit Apple and that's why you see this reaction," Narayen said. In the real world developers prefer to build one web application and deploy it across multiple devices. They don't develop software for just one platform like the Iphone.
Meanwhile Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch has also waded into the fray, saying that the primary issue was whether or not Apple should block Adobe's widely used runtimes as well as a variety of technologies from other providers.

However, he said that given the legal terms Apple imposes on developers, "we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple devices for both Flash Player and AIR."