Why Adobe shouldn't give a $&*# about Apple

    Creative Suite 5 will play a big role in analysts' bullish outlook. Patrick Walravens, analyst from JMP Securities, estimates second-quarter revenue will climb to $906 million and revenue for the fiscal year will reach $3.88 billion, versus analysts' consensus of $3.72 billion.

    "Despite all the back-and forth, I think they're going to generate more revenue and more earnings than people expect, and this in turn will make the stock go up," predicts Walravens.

    While Apple faithful are usually easily persuaded to Jobs's vision, Adobe's core demographic of creative pros are unlikely to rapidly switch over to a new, relatively untested suite of development tools, particularly when the ones they're using now are still effective for the greatest variety of platforms. Apple's is also facing its own uphill battle: full Flash 10.1 support is coming to more than 8 million Android phones in June. And, Fortune recently reported that Android phones have eclipsed Apple's in sales for the last quarter–by a healthy margin.

Where Adobe could lose: in the long run

    What Adobe is now concerning itself with is building a long-term game plan. HTML5, the next generation of the web's basic language, is quickly gaining traction with developers, and got a significant nudge forward with the iPad's adoption of the standard. Web sites like Fortune.com now feature videos coded in HTML5 for video playback on Apple's mobile devices. Sites like YouTube and Hulu are rapidly moving towards the new standard as well.

    Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML5 specification, has given an extremely conservative final release date of 2022 – yes, 2022 – but that date has far more to do with standards boards and plenary sessions than the already rapid adoption of a working transitional standard: speculation is that HTML5 could achieve widespread adoption in as little as two years.

    If that were to happen -- and that would be a worst-case, but increasingly likely scenario for Adobe -- Flash couldn't help but lose some of its edge to the open-standard format. In anticipation, Adobe pledged at the recent Web 2.0 Expo to develop the best set of HTML5 tools available.

    Though the web may come to be dominated by HTML5, Adobe could still remain a major player in the online interactive game – if it can get used to giving up its home field advantage and just play ball.