Adobe hits back (sort of) at prospect of Flash-less Windows 8 tablets

Says Flash-based apps will still come to Metro-powered devices via Adobe Air.

One of the intriguing bits of incidental information about Microsoft's unveiling of its tablet-friendly Windows 8 operating system last week was the news that like Apple's iOS, it won't support Flash.

Now Adobe has made its response, steering away from aggressive declarations, but making it clear it does not see the news as a new threat to the Flash platform.

"We expect Windows desktop to be extremely popular for years to come (including Windows 8 desktop) and that it will support Flash just fine, including rich web based games and premium videos that require Flash," blogs Adobe's Danny Winokur.

"In addition, we expect Flash based apps will come to Metro via Adobe AIR, much the way they are on Android, iOS and BlackBerry Tablet OS today, including the recent number one paid app for the iPad on the Apple App Store, Machinarium, which is built using Flash tools and deployed on the Web using Flash Player and through app stores as a standalone app."

So there you have it. The blog post also aims to hammer home Adobe's support of HTML5 as well as its own Flash platform, to ensure its content creation tools remain relevant if OS makers stop supporting the latter.