U.S. antitrust enforcers are considering an investigation of Apple Inc. following a complaint from Adobe Systems Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
Adobe says Apple is stifling competition by barring developers from using Adobe’s products to create applications for iPhones and iPads, said the people who spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the case.
The complaint triggered discussions between the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission over which agency should review the allegations of anticompetitive behavior, the people said. Neither agency has decided whether it would open an investigation, one person said.
The problem in Adobe’s plea is that Adobe’s products can certainly be used to develop for iPhone and iPad. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, even Premiere, can be used to create compelling content for iPhone and iPads. Acrobat’s PDF format has long been a first class citizen on the iPhone platform and comes into it’s own on the iPad.
Just not Flash.
And for those of us who choose to use Click2Flash, we can see why. As Adobe have failed to deliver a good experience of Flash on Mac OS X and has no plans to enable Flash on iPhone (note their project was for a cross-compiler, not something that would make Flash on iPhone just work).
This is all about control. It’s Apple’s platform, not Adobe’s. Adobe wants to be everywhere and they’ve asked the Feds to force Apple’s hand here.