

Adobe acquires Nitobi (Founders of Phonegap) - kgutteridge
http://blogs.nitobi.com/andre/index.php/2011/10/03/nitobi-enters-into-acquisition-agreement-with-adobe/

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jaaron
The code has been submitted to the Apache Incubator:

[http://wiki.phonegap.com/w/page/46311152/apache-callback-
pro...](http://wiki.phonegap.com/w/page/46311152/apache-callback-proposal)

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mdda
This makes the move to transfer PhoneGap itself to the Apache Foundation all
the more reassuring.

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w33ble
I don't know why people are so surprised with this acquisition. Adobe has
wanted a piece of the mobile development world for some time (look at the
export to iOS they released not too long ago). They already have a decent
suite of development tools and this will only make them stronger. A write
once, deploy to all strategy is quite appealing, and if Adobe can manage to
wrap it all up in to a nice piece of development software, they'd have a real
winner on their hands.

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donw
The thing is, Adobe has a history of not releasing anything remotely like
'nice development software'.

Even their installers and update processes are universally horrible.

Out of this, I expect some sort of massive IDE targeting mobile devices with
HTML5/JS, basically like Titanium only an order of magnitude slower.

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benbjohnson
I'm not sure why everyone is surprised. Adobe has just come out with a slew of
new HTML5 products (Muse, Edge) and they already have Dreamweaver which is
typically used for HTML editing.

Adobe doesn't have a strong future with Flash but they still need to support
their existing Flash/Flex customers. They can't simply shutdown Flash.

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troymc
Flash may well die for its current uses, but I think Flash 11+ will be the
best cross-browser solution for GPU-accelerated 3D graphics for a while
(unless IE adopts WebGL, which I don't think will happen, but I hope I'm
wrong).

Unity, one of the most popular game development tools, will soon release a
"publish to Flash" option. (Unity can already publish to Windows, Mac OS X,
Unity Web Player, iOS, Android, Wii, and soon PS3 & Xbox.)

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brackin
PhoneGap and Typekit in one day? Two services I love. I see the TypeKit
purchase but not exactly this. Because it's well out of what Adobe does, I
envision them turning it into some kind of full premium application which
would really deter me from using PhoneGap.

PhoneGap did recently launch Build a simpler solution for this and they may
keep the old PhoneGap but develop build in a new way but as Adobe were never
fans of HTML5 I don't see how this could have a great outcome.

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taylorbuley
Rather than assume Adobe will veer PhoneGap away from HTML5 interoperability,
I take this as a sign that Adobe is instead veering toward PhoneGap and HTML5.

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untog
Wow- Adobe really are going on a buying streak these days.

I can see the reason for the TypeKit purchase, but never expected this one.
I'm a little concerned, but Adobe have been good on their promise to push
HTML5 so far, so I hope that this simply means that PhoneGap has a ton more
resources at it's disposal, and not that it'll get forced down some Adobe-
centric route.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Adobe isn't a
Flash-only company, but they _are_ invested in cross-platform when it comes to
mobile devices. Will be interesting to see what happens.

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draggnar
They had integrated PhoneGap with Dreamweaver 5.5 --- not totally shocking,
and makes sense to move more towards html5

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revorad
Wow, they still make Dreamweaver! I remember trying to make websites in it
when I first discovered the internet. Good old days.

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tamersalama
I'd be interested to know why Adobe opted to buy the company (Nitobi) rather
than the product (Phonegap). Was it already Apache licensed which tied Adobe's
hands to lock it down? Or was it more of a talent acquisition?

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kgutteridge
I also wonder whether Adobe has acquired Nitbobi more for phonegap build and
talent than phonegap itself

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sologoub
HN traffic seems to have crashed the site - getting a DB error page.

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jmitcheson
Is the source code for the Phonegap Build API open?

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nateberkopec
Damn, I thought Phonegap was going to be good.

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lukifer
It is pretty good already. And since it's open source, there's nothing to stop
a community fork if Adobe screws up the stewardship.

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soapdog
NOOOOOOOOOOO..... (as if thousands of linux and webos users suddenly cried for
help)

