Monday morning hangover: Adobe and Microsoft

Big announcements this morning that are prompting a lot of discussion on the web. One interesting thing is that the conversation about the Microsoft and Adobe announcement are all on the same Techmeme thread. Why? Because the announcements today are more signs that Microsoft and Adobe are on a collision course, or at least that's the spin.

But if you stand back from the crowd, the implications here are even bigger than Microsoft vs Adobe. Of course those two companies are starting to get into each other's areas, but in the grand scheme of things, that isn't really important. We're seeing a definite blending of the software world where being "on the desktop" or "on the web" doesn't really matter. People are just excited about building engaging user experiences, and they want technologies that make that easy to do and in a way that is good for users.

Adobe doesn't lose if Microsoft's Silverlight does well, just as Microsoft isn't going to lose if Apollo does well. But as both companies develop tools and ecosystems around Rich Internet Applications, developers, users, and designers win. Right now, with all the announcements and news, people are confusing technologies, talking about Silverlight versus Apollo when they don't even do the same things. As the news calms down, I hope we can all talk about building better tools, creating better experiences, and empowering developers.

All that said, comparing and contrasting specific technologies is helpful, and you'll see a lot of that here on ZDNet, but lets not make it a religious war.