

Document startups in chaos as Adobe discontinues Flashpaper - danw
http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/09/04/startups-in-chaos-as-adobes-flashpaper-discontinues/

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meat-eater
I think scribd implements their own flash app to view documents. So they
should be ok.

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meat-eater
Let me add that again, this goes to show that depending on a vendor for an
important technology in your startup can actually be risky. Using open
standards are always the way to go.

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mechanical_fish
_Using open standards are always the way to go._

Well, no. Certainly not "always". You're absolutely right about the big risk,
but sometimes the reward is _worth_ the risk. Selling Photoshop plugins means
being dependent on Adobe's decisions, but that doesn't mean you should go into
business selling Gimp plugins instead.

What you have to do is keep the risk firmly in mind, and hedge it. Pay your
insurance premiums.

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trapper
Awesome & funny, this is why I love this site. Gimp plugins! ROFL

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hhm
This is an opportunity for Scribd, they can now offer their iPaper for the
affected companies (excepting competition, I guess).

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gaius
This is not actually a problem, as everyone identified this risk during due
dilligence when they were getting funded. Right?

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startingup
I may be wrong, but my understanding of the technology was that Scribd iPaper
is a wrapper over Flashpaper. I remember reading that somewhere, but can't be
sure ...

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mixmax
I think there's a lesson to be learnt here, even though it might be a boring
one: Don't be dependant on the newest and fanciest technology - you never know
when it will be discontinued. Stick to cobol ;-)

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rbanffy
Repeat with me:

"I will never, ever, even think of betting my company´s future on another
company´s product"

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wmf
Zero risk is easy to understand and makes nice slogans, but there's money to
be made in managing non-zero risk.

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rbanffy
There is zero risk and infinite risk. Betting your company on another company
and having no exit strategy available (or possible) may be lucrative, for some
time, but, in the end, may prove quite painful.

My advice would be to manage the non-zero risk and ride the other company for
as long as you can, but keep Plan-B always in hand.

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michael_dorfman
Any response yet from the scribd folks?

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furiouslol
They are no longer using Macromedia's Flashpaper. They have their own in-house
iPaper technology. Hence, they are not affected by this news.

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mechanical_fish
_Scribd... [is] not affected by this news._

If this is so, then Scribd's PR person really needs to write TechCrunch every
fifteen minutes until the site puts up a bigger correction. Just marking up
the word "Scribd" in the story with a strikethru is nowhere near enough. A lot
of readers might miss that detail. Others, like me, will see it but have no
idea why it's there. And even if you recognize that they've been crossed out,
just mentioning Scribd in this context is to associate them with something
bad. As it stands, the article is the textual equivalent of a politician
saying "Many public figures have fatal illnesses, but I would never accuse my
opponent of having Lou Gehrig's Disease."

The fact that the word "Scribd" even appeared in that story calls for the
removal of their name from the main story and the addition of a full blown,
fall-on-our-sword, "We screwed up and didn't check our facts; Scribd has
nothing to do with this story; we regret the error" apology at the end. This
is nothing to be sly about.

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andreyf
I think you're overestimating the significance of a TC story :-P

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cookiecaper
Hehehe, this is what happens when you use proprietary, standardless, single-
implementation products. Stay away from evil apps and you're not at any single
company's mercy.

