Adobe is clearly responding to the threat that Apple’s decision makes, not in the consumer market, but amongst the developer community.

A narrow set of consumers care about “Open”. A broad set care about the utility of what they use – what does it cost, does it work better, it is easy. Too often we – those of us in the industry – confuse the customer need with the industry political agenda. Does any customer really notice or care that they are using Flash or HTML 5? No. But as soon as either fails to deliver what they want in any material way, they vote with their wallets.

Adobe’s ad ran in the Washington Post – perhaps a precursor to a broader push in the political arena around anti-trust and regulation.

But developers do care. And Adobe can’t loose them. The message to the development community is clear – we will defend your content and projects, built on our platforms.