Adobe lashes back at Apple’s on lazy remark

Adobe has lashed back at Apple CEO Steve Jobs' comment where he characterised Adobe as "lazy". According to Wired, at an event on January 30 Steve Jobs remarked that Adobe is lazy, Flash is buggy, and the world is moving toward HTML5 anyway. Whenever a Mac crashes, it is most frequently because of Flash, Jobs asserted.

A blog entry by Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch responds to Job's comments. The blog begins taking a hit at Apple's just launched iPad, "Some have been surprised at the lack of inclusion of Flash Player on a recent magical device."

Lynch then goes on add that Flash was originally designed for "pen computing tablets, about 15 years before that market was ready to take off." He writes that Flash is currently used in more than 85% of the top Web sites, including Nike, Hulu, BBC and Major League Baseball. Also, Flash is a critical part of the smartphone market; Adobe is "on the verge of delivering Flash Player 10.1 for smartphones with all but one of the top manufacturers. This includes Google's Android, RIM's Blackberry, Nokia, Palm Pre and many others across form factors including not only smartphones but also tablets, netbooks, and internet-connected TVs." "Even the Nexus One will be Flash 10.1-equipped," according to Lynch.

Regarding HTML5 replacing Flash, he wrote, "If HTML could reliably do everything Flash" can, it would "certainly save us a lot of effort." But because Flash is still enabling more than 75% of Web video, Flash will be around "even as HTML advances."

Incidentally, this is not the first time that Apple and Adobe have clashed. Apple's been resisting user demands to add Flash to the iPhone for more than three years now. On March 6, 2008, Steve Jobs reportedly made another public jab at Adobe, saying that the Flash Lite Player wasn't "advanced enough" for use on the iPhone, and that it performed "too slow to be useful."

Sun CEO's last tweet

In a tweeted goodbye, the chief executive of Sun Microsystems bowed out with a haiku.

Jonathan Schwartz's haiku on Twitter reads as follows: "Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more."

Within Twitter's 140-character limit, Schwartz tells his followers on Thursday that it's his last day at Sun. And that he'll miss it.

He had been expected to leave after Oracle Corp. closed its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. on Jan. 27.

Schwartz's following on Twitter swelled by at least 1,000 Thursday, to some 9,000, on the day of his post. Oracle declined to comment or confirm that Schwartz resigned.

Schwartz has been an avid blogger, and in 2006 asked federal regulators to allow companies to disclose significant financial information through blogs.

Yahoo to sell HotJobs to Monster

Yahoo! Inc plans to sell its HotJobs employment Web site to Monster Worldwide Inc. for $225 million in cash as the company focuses on its traditional properties, including the home page.

As part of the sale, Monster will become the provider of career and job content on Yahoo’s home page in the US and Canada for three years, Monster said today in a statement. The company expects the transaction to close in the third quarter.

Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz has reduced expenses and shuttered underperforming businesses, such as the GeoCities Web-hosting site. In July, she struck a deal with Microsoft Corp. to collaborate in Web search and advertising, cutting engineering and capital costs.

“It’s housekeeping step one,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Financial LP in New York, who recommends buying Yahoo shares and doesn’t own them. “It’s the first part of the non-core divestitures that the company and management has to go through. The real notable part is it took a year to get this done.”

Yahoo paid about $436 million for HotJobs in 2002. The business, the No. 3 U.S. career and development site, had 11.1 million users in December, down 22 percent from a year earlier, according to ComScore Inc. in Reston, Virginia. Monster, ranked No. 2, had 16.5 million users in December, down 10 percent from a year ago. CareerBuilder ranked first.

Last month, Yahoo agreed to sell Zimbra, an e-mail and online collaboration unit, to VMware Inc. for an undisclosed amount.
Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, paid $350 million for Zimbra in 2007.

‘Refocusing Yahoo’
“Carol has definitely done a good job in terms of refocusing Yahoo,” said Aaron Kessler, an analyst with Kaufman Brothers LP, who recommends buying the stock and doesn’t own it. “Whether longer-term they can really turn around the core growth is another issue.”

With the three-year agreement, Monster will make annual payments to Yahoo, based partly on traffic from users, Monster said.

In addition, the company will be able to pursue similar agreements in areas outside of Canada and the U.S., including Europe and Asia. New York-based Monster also will expand its network of newspapers with the addition of HotJobs, which has more than 600 newspaper partners.

“Essentially, the transaction positions Monster to add high-quality, relevant job seekers efficiently, while at the same time significantly expanding our customer base,” Sal Iannuzzi, CEO of Monster, said in a conference call.

Yahoo rose 29 cents to $15.46 today on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have fallen 7.9 percent in 2010. Monster, down 5.6 percent this year, climbed 38 cents to $16.42 on the New York Stock Exchange.

“HotJobs and Monster believe the transaction will benefit job seekers and recruiters alike by allowing them to have access to a larger and more diverse pool of job seekers and recruiters,” Yahoo said in an e-mailed statement.