Enterprise adoption: Does HTML5 stand a chance against Flash technologies?
I had been following up on HTML5 for the last few months and Abhay’s XKE session a couple of days ago really helped better understand the scope and capabilities of HTML5 as a technology. But having worked with Flex for nearly three years and being familiar with what the Flash platform does offer, there was not much in HTML5 that got me really excited.
In fact I am going to stick my neck out and make a series of claims and eventually conclude that the benefits of choosing Adobe Flex today completely overshadow HTML5.
Flash/Flex reaches 99% of internet enabled desktops
I am not making this claim, Adobe is. And they have backed it up with real data including the Milward Brown surveyconducted as recently as September 2009 showing Flash runtime as the clear leader in this segment. In addition the Ubiquity survey for September 2009 shows that in average 93.5% of users in mature markets (i.e. U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand) use the latest version for the Flash plugin which is version 10.
Comparing this with HTML5, which is only partially supported by only the latest versions of Chrome, Opera, Safari and Firefox (all of which put together don’t command a majority in the browser market share) is a no-contest. I’m with all of you and I use Chrome myself (with the Flash plugin!) and I am all for open standards prevailing over proprietary technologies, however when making a business decision personal preferences are to be put aside and market realities are to be acknowledged.
More people can view your web application if developed in Flash/Flash than in HTML5. I write this in December 2009 and I think this would hold true at least for the next 18 to 24 months.
Greater interoperability with your existing systems is achieved with Flash/Flex
Both HTML5 and Flash/Flex allow for asynchronous and persistent communications with server side layers. However Flex has been around longer than HTML5, hence its support for interoperability has matured significantly and provides for a lot more. Open technologies such as BlazeDS can be used to integrate Flex easily with your Java investments. I don’t want to make this post read like an ad for Adobe so I am not mentioning Adobe LiveCycle but if you’re looking for greater enterprise support, that would be the way to go. .Net too isn’t unfamiliar territory for Flex with inbuilt support for SOAP based web services.
Other popular server side languages such as PHP and Python also have popular AMF libraries – AMFPHP, AMFast and PYAMF just to name a few.
Offering a technology stack including Adobe Flex, Python and AMFast deployed on Google infrastructure (via the Google App Engine) would give us a solution where in development time is low (Python and Flex are popular for rapid app development) while the solution itself is secure, well backed up and highly scalable.
Do more with Flash/Flex
I am yet to see a good enough data visualization application in HTML5 that competes with everything that Flex offers i.e. the chart components, the simple and advanced data grids and OLAP data grids as well.
Data visualization being just one example. There is a lot more Flex can natively provide for that HTML5 simply does not at this point of time. Not to mention the scores of open source and proprietary third party libraries available for ActionScript/Flex. BirdEye, PaperVision3D to name a couple, and this is a good place to get started.
Capability-wise HTML5 / Javascript libraries are just not there yet.
Finding developers
http://www.google.co.in/search?q=“flex+developer” returns 1,060,000 results
http://www.google.co.in/search?q=“html5+developer” returns 863 results
Not claiming this to be a scientific poll but you get my point! 
Flash/Flex has been out there for many years now, good reference material is widely available, training programmes and certification exams are conducted and well supported by Adobe and third parties. Meanwhile HTML5 is still a “draft specification”.
Conclusion
As a developer I am excited about HTML5 and I would love to see an open technology succeed. But it would just not be practical to opt for HTML5 over Flex at the moment. The silver lining for HTML5 would be that it has an opportunity in the mobile devices segment where Adobe Flash does lag behind.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by HowDo.us, HowDo.us. HowDo.us said: Enterprise adoption: Does HTML5 stand a chance against Flash technologies?: I had been following up on HTML5 for th… http://bit.ly/5PJy12 […]
Actually, support for .Net and other technologies is better than SOAP. See http://www.themidnightcoders.com/products.html
Thanks for the add on. Further strengthens my argument.
You shouldn’t be comparing html5 to Flex but rather javascript RIA’s with tools like jQuery to Flex. Webkit as a platform has far more functionality and better performance than Flex/Flash
The number of RIA tools JavaScript dwarf those of flex and flash. The advent of ever faster js engines, ChromeOS, and mobile app development with js/css/html5 and soon SVG will make Flex even smaller.
I evaluated both and am completely underwhelmed by the size and strength of the flex community. I just looked on the #flex irc channel and there are only 50 users there. There are consistently 500 users on the #jquery channel alone.
HTML 5 isn’t even finalized and it is making huge wave. That is why you get fewer search results.
Check out ajax.org and gRaphael for awesome charting.
@NotImpressed, if this were true, “Webkit as a platform has far more functionality and better performance than Flex/Flash”, why do devs makes Flash games and not WebKit/Javascript games? Surely game devs want better performance?
Yes, Javascript has more RIA tools because there are more frameworks. Flex on the other hand has two full-featured IDEs — Flash/Flex Builder (Eclipse) and IntelliJ IDEA — which are serious development environments and suitable for all Flex devs, especially those coming from a Java background.
You can’t compare Flex to jQuery communities. Flex is used almost exclusively to build RIAs while jQuery is used for trivial stuff like rollovers (as well as some full-blown RIAs). By the way, Flexcoders is a very active Flex community.
I think you are missing the point about Enterprise adoption. This area is all about data management and security. Where are the serious Javascript frameworks for passing fully-typed Java/C#/PHP/Ruby/Python objects between client and server? Automatic syncrhonisation of data and intelligent conflict resolution (for Java)?
HTML5 is making waves in terms of replacing Flash for simple video applications. This is fine and sensible for these cases (if it ever supports H.264 in Firefox of course) but outside of this, it remains to be seen whether it will have much impact. Considering the history of implementation of other standards — CSS2 for example — it will be at least another 5–10 years before HTML5 is fully supported cross-platform (if iE comes on board) and by then Flash and Silverlight will be light years ahead.
I think in its segment of the flash will hold the position
I have posted an blog post on this article. Please have a look. Its genuine counter argument .
Link to article:
http://blog.logicwind.com/52/article/response-to-html5-vs-flash-technologies-blog-article/
[…] There is a few really good argument about this problem area (why HTML5 is a big thread to Adobe, Does HTML5 stand a chance against Flash technologies?, HTML5’s Flash and Silverlight ‘killer’ potential chopped, Does Flash need […]
It’s going to be an interesting development over the next two to four years. I believe HTML5 is going to gradually bite off the Flash/Flex community, but that development will gradually occur that these specs take an awful long time to reach completion.
Even then, a couple of things will still continue to strongly favor Flex. Firstly, being a plugin, it’s only restricted by the OS policies on what can’t be done. Javascript, on the other hand, is restricted by the browser’s sandbox which makes certain types of applications impossible. The new html5 spec is going to expand that sandbox to be closer to what Flash offers though. Secondly, Flash does not face the problem of non-conformity and browser quirks being all under Adobe’s control.
Having said that, comparing Flash/Flex to HTML5 is somewhat unfair. It’s the whole stack that comes with it, including Javascript and CSS. The community around HTML/JS/CSS is much larger compared to that of Flash. For enterprises that already have a lot invested in Flash, it may not make sense to migrate today due the problems you have already mentioned. But it’s not long before they should start considering it as a serious alternative, especially with heavy backing from companies such as Google and Apple. Google Wave is a perfect example of the kind of enterprise applications that can be developed with this stack.
@Anurag Good points. While I agree that the HTML/JS/CSS community is larger than the Flex/Flash user group, must point out that the CSS user group is shared by the two communities.