Recently Adobe acquired Phonegap developers Nitobi, read about it here and here. Does this mean Phonegap will die? Phonegap has been an open source, free product from the start. Nitobi have had a business model where they provide training, consulting and other value adding services – like their build service. As far as I understand Adobe have a completely different business model, they sell software licenses… There have been other examples of free software being acquired by large corporations, with the promise of continued support and availability of the free version, only for them to pull the plug on it after a period of time. Redgate and Lutz Roeders Reflector comes to mind…
I personaly hope that Adobes acquisition of Nitobi will be good for Phonegap’s future. The guys and gals have taken steps to protect all us users of Phonegap from greedy corporate management! The Phonegap project has been moved to the Apache Foundation under the name Callback. So effectively the purchase of Nitobi does not include Phonegap but instead their value added services and know-how. I think this will be great for developers even if Adobe later drops support and development of Phonegap. Any development that is done will hopefully be moved into the open source project in some form and will provide value for everyone.
This may seem like a bad move for Adobe but I believe this is a key strategic component in their future product suite. Adobe has been left behind in the mobile app space, even bullied by Apple. Flash is a no-go on Iphone, even recompiling flash applications for Iphone has been deemed a breach of the IOs api terms, although that has been lifted and it is now ok. Javascript and Html5 on the other hand are everybodys new darling, to the point of actually threatening both Flash and Silverlight for the rich internet application space. By incorporating support for Phonegap in Adobes product suite, extending abd refining the open source platform to rival true native apps and providing paid services to build apps for all platforms Adobe will be able to get a foothold in the app development market. They may even be able dominate it if they play their cards right – why maintain 7 versions of an app (one for each platform) when you could simply create a Phonegap/Callback app and target all platforms using a single code base… If Adobe provide the right tooling and competitve pricing I think they will definetly be able to sell a whole bunch of licenses!
