Adobe, HP: How Not To Deliver The Message That Apple Has Disrupted Your Business

There are similarities between how Adobe announced the end of support for mobile Flash and how HP previously announced the fate of WebOS and anticipated winddown of their PC business.

At HP, then-CEO Leo Apothaker in August 2011 said:

Consumers are changing the use of their PC. The tablet effect is real and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations… 

By "tablet effect," Apothekar means "iPad" - there's no other tablet effect.

Now, just three months later, Adobe is saying some of the same things. In a post that seeks to clarify Adobe's announcement, Flash Product Manager Mike Chambers accepts that the messaging was flawed and is even more explicit in blaming Apple:

...the Flash Player was not on track to reach anywhere near the ubiquity of the Flash Player on desktops...Just to be very clear on this. No matter what we did, the Flash Player was not going to be available on Apple's iOS anytime in the foreseeable future.

Each announcement was precipitated by Apple and the disruption that iOS has imposed.

Both companies have been criticized for the medium in which their announcement was made (earnings call and blog post, respectively) and the messaging that accompanied the announcement.

Adobe at least seems to have made more effort to get out in front of the media and speak to their respective audiences, through Chambers' post and other posts by Ben Forta and the Flex team.

John Gruber has pointed out that "A lack of clear, concise, plainspoken communication is as sure a sign as any of poor leadership," and these two examples of once-great companies unable to control their messaging certainly bears that out.