Reversing course, Google rejects Adobe Web publishing tech
It can be hard to say no to an idea with some merit — especially after already saying yes. — But that's the position Google is in with an Adobe Systems technology for bringing more sophisticated, magazine-style layouts …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is at least the third time Google has walked back a public commitment, following its 2007 video-refund reversal and its 2009 decision to retire Gears in favor of HTML5. The difference here is the direction: where those pivots moved toward open standards, this one withdraws support from Adobe's technology for bringing magazine-style layouts to the Web after having previously signed on.
The story traveled widely on pickup day — Ars Technica among the outlets running it — because it touches the recurring tension in the corpus between Google as gatekeeper and the companies that build on its platforms, a friction New York Magazine labeled 'Googlephobia' back in 2005.
First-order effects
- Publishers and designers who planned around richer, print-like layouts in Chrome lose the adoption path they thought was secured, and Adobe must now shop the technology to other browser engines or watch it stall.
Second-order effects
- Adobe's realistic fallback is pushing the layout capability through formal standards bodies, forcing Mozilla and Microsoft to take explicit public positions on a feature Chrome won't ship — and reminding every tool vendor that shipping a Web feature now requires buy-in from the engine owners.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the Web's visual and layout capabilities get set by a handful of browser-engine maintainers rather than by the publishing-software companies whose customers want them, extending the same dynamic as Google's Gears-to-HTML5 steering of the platform.
The trend: Control over what the Web can look like is consolidating in the hands of browser vendors, leaving toolmakers like Adobe to lobby standards bodies instead of shipping directly.