A great PR battle has all the thrills of a well-choreographed dance. Steve Jobs charges in trashing Adobe and Flash. Adobe responds with nothing but love.
We Love Apple, We Love Choice, We Love HTML5—these are all slogans for Adobe's new ad campaign you can find on both their site and across the web. And it gets better. Rather than ripping Steve apart point by point (Jobs actually presented his argument in fully numbered, 6-point fashion), cheek-pinchable Adobe founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock are practically making babies—in sepia, no less—in a photo accompanying their open letter.
Then, after the hugs and the heart attack, Adobe goes full presidential, using rhetoric like "believe" and "freedom" while framing Apple as the opposition not to just their company, but the entire "world" wide web. You can read the letter here, but I think the Wordle versions of each speech are a lot more telling.
Steve Jobs' Flash Platform Attack:
Adobe's Believe In Innovation Rebuttal:
Steve, what's with the suit, man? Where did the free-loving hippie go?
See the ads for yourself at: [Adobe and Engadget]
UPDATE: Here's part of an Adobe ad from the Business section of the LATimes: