I just read an article by Tom Yager describing how Adobe is actually making things happen in the Web 2.0 world, where others are slacking.

“…’browser as a platform’ has been on [Microsoft, Mozilla, and Apple’s] to-do lists for years, and none has raised HTML rendering and caching performance, standards compliance, stability, or JavaScript engine speed to levels sufficient to support true applications. With Adobe doing the driving, I think we’ll soon see some action.”

Well put.

While being employed at Adobe, I’ve seen first hand how well Adobe listens to it’s customers, and many times proactively seeks thoughts from it’s customers, on what could be improved. What things are important to it’s customers. What ways Adobe can use it’s resources to best serve the customer. What an inspiring company!

Microsoft wants to be on top of the world. They have been able to position themselves there through their past success. Slowly, it seems they are losing the confidence of their customers and the only reason they haven’t plummeted to the bottom is that they are so big, they don’t move very quickly. Vista is disappointing, and they don’t seem to have many new ideas that impress. The “new” ideas they do have are not at all new – they take competitors ideas and try to use their massive resources to make something comparable. They’re reactive, not proactive.

The new products Adobe has coming out, namely Flex 3, AIR, ColdFusion 8 and LiveCycle ES, are truly a testament to the commitment Adobe has to fulfilling it’s customers needs. Adobe understands that it can focus on the needs of it’s clients and the profits will follow where many other companies focus on profits and respond to customers needs if it isn’t inconvenient.

This is an exciting time to be involved in web technologies. Where do you see it going?