Adobe CEO hits back at Steve Jobs

Shantanu Narayen has reacted strongly to Steve Jobs's open letter

Adobe's chief executive has hit back at claims by Steve Jobs that Apple does not support Flash because of "technological" problems, branding it a " smokescreen" for wider issues.

Shantanu Narayen told The Wall Street Journal that Jobs's comments in an open letter published yesterday disguise the "real issue" that he wants to place Apple at the forefront of the growing mobile applications market, and is concerned about competition from Adobe.

"The article yesterday and Apple's recent behaviour shows that they are concerned about us and the fact that we are able to provide to customers and consumers alike. Their recent actions show we are making progress," said Narayen.

Narayen denied the "technological issues" Jobs outlined in the letter, including the claim that Flash causes most crashes on Mac devices.

"I'm not aware that Flash is the cause of crashes. It has as much to do with the Apple operating system," he said.

"Flash runs on Windows and we see eight million downloads a day, it runs videos on the web, games on the web. The technology is not the real issue."

Narayen also "patently denied" the allegation that Flash reduces battery life from 10 hours to five, and said that Adobe's hardware acceleration capabilities mean that Flash uses less battery power on a Mac device.

Narayen insisted that Flash has the capabilities to meet new developments in touch technology, contrary to Jobs's assertion, and that all platforms - CSS, HTML and Flash - have had to evolve to meet the new generation of touch-screen devices.

Jobs had also described Flash as a closed system, which Narayen said he found "amusing". He argued that Flash can be created to run on multiple devices, proving that it is an open system.

Throughout the interview Narayen reiterated Adobe's vision of offering products that allow developers to create applications for a multi-platform world of devices, and that customers will ultimately decide whether Flash is the tool to use.

Narayen explained that he does not use an iPhone, and dismissed the iPad as a "good first-generation device", but that there would be "tremendous innovation in tablet devices in the second half of the year".

Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer at Adobe, also underlined the company's position on the matter.

"We have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple, and we are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm, Microsoft, Nokia and others," he said in a blog post.