It is said that revolutions happen one moment at a time. Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. have been consistently gone against the grain and in so doing created a company and I daresay even a movement counterculture based on the Apple platform. In today’s Wall Street Journal ‘Apple wins Ground in Fight Over Flash’ http://bit.ly/c1vyvU , the hissy fight with Adobe and its Flash technology is highlighted.

I am a big believer in breaking the mold and trying to do things a different way. The iMac was a different approach to personal computing. The iPhone is widely considered to be even more ‘revolutionary’ (despite the lousy phone service) when Apple unveiled the device in 2007. And the iPad may well turn out to be the gateway to a future in how people consume content (a very overused term BTW).

Yet I have difficulty in understanding how Mr. Jobs’ seemingly personal war on Flash will help make things better for consumers – and make no bones about it, Mr. Jobs likes to think of himself as the leader of a movement to make things better.

The alternative that Apple is suggesting is HTML5 programming which according to some is several years away from broad adoption. Since 75% of online video uses Flash (which has the ability to secure and track videos) not having flash on the iPhone or iPad is very limiting and from what I have heard very annoying.
The article also notes that analysts estimate that only 5% of Adobe’s revenue is directly tied to Flash. So it’s not as if the (should Steve Jobs has his way) possible crash of Flash would destroy Adobe. It seems to me that Apple is trying to protect its turf. That’s not the way that I (or many people) have perceived Apple as a company and it may be an indication that Apple has gone from an upstart anti-establishment company to being an ‘establishment’ company.

I suspect that people that work for Apple like working there, and like working for Mr. Jobs thinking that at Apple you are not working for ‘the man’. Those same people then will be disappointed when they figure out that they have might have been working for ‘the man’ all along.

Good Apple or Bad Apple? Or both? What say you?