AIR today, gone tomorrow
Adobe has decided to drop support for it's desktop Linux versions of AIR and the AIR SDK, as the market has failed to grow as much as Adobe expected it would. In place of the desktop Linux client and development tools, Adobe will be increasing its focus on iOS and Android.
In the past few years that Adobe has been providing a Linux AIR client, its downloads have accounted for around 0.5 per cent of all downloads, hardly an encouraging figure, and the desktop Linux market has grown at a flat one per cent. Conversely, the iOS and Android markets are predicted to rise in the region of 16 per cent and 46 per cent respectively.
To quote Adobe's Dave McAllister: "Obviously the trend line in both of these cases is climbing. Adobe has certainly noticed it, our customers and partners have noticed it, and I'd bet that if you write or sell software, you've noticed it. The market is shifting to a mobile client, increasingly focused on the delivery of rich experiences and applications that travel with us via phone or tablet."
With AIR used by companies such as the BBC (for the iPlayer desktop client), among others, to simplify cross-platform deployment of applications, it's possible that a third party might pick up where Adobe left off, and bring AIR back to Linux - Adobe says it is will support anyone wishing to do so. However, with the small market share of desktop Linux AIR apps, and the fact that most functionality they provide can be delivered via a web browser, it's likely that Adobe's removal of support will indeed be the death knell for AIR on Linux.
