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Adobe’s announcements that a full version of Flash is coming to every smartphone not named Apple iPhone leave me conflicted. Full-blown Flash can be a boon to the mobile Web, but has the potential to become one huge security headache.
First the happy talk: A public beta of Flash Player 10.1 will be coming to Windows Mobile and Palm’s WebOS later this year. Next year will bring Flash betas to Google Android and Symbian phones. Research in Motion is also working with Adobe. Multi-touch Flash, accelerometer perks and other mobile goodies abound. And from an tech vendor art of war perspective, Adobe’s news that full Flash capabilities are coming to Windows Mobile phones, Palm, RIM and Google Android phones is very interesting. Apple is the last mobile handset holdout when it comes to Flash adoption.
And then you trip over the big honking negative: Security. From a user perspective, Flash your mobile phone may be nice, but can also be a big drag. The patches, the vulnerabilities, the frequent upgrades and the potential monoculture headaches. Monoculture for our purposes refers to one dominant technology that pervades multiple fronts. Windows is a monoculture. Flash is a monoculture. Anything that’s a standard is a monoculture. The problem with monocultures: You can attack them and cause a lot of collateral damage because there’s no diversity.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=25393
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