Microsoft on Adobe: Flash has "issues" but remains important

Who knew that Steve Jobs would find an ally in Microsoft?

Jobs, who is no fan of Adobe Flash, made that point perfectly clear in an open letter published yesterday that pointed to problems with Flash - notably problems with its reliability, security and performance.

Around the same time, Dean Hachamovitch, general manager for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, was putting up a blog post of his own that was saying some of the same things. The post was actually more about the HTML5 and how it's the future of the Web. It also centered around H.264 as a standard, just as Steve Jobs had done.

Of course, Microsoft is pushing Silverlight as a competitor to Flash so no one would necessarily expect Microsoft to come to Adobe's defense. Still the post isn't too bad. At the end of it, Hachamovitch chimed in about Adobe. He wrote:

Today, video on the web is predominantly Flash-based. While video may be available in other formats, the ease of accessing video using just a browser on a particular website without using Flash is a challenge for typical consumers. Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and performance. We work closely with engineers at Adobe, sharing information about the issues we know of in ongoing technical discussions. Despite these issues, Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today’s web.

So there you have it. Flash has issues - something that Microsoft and Apple agree about.