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Apple has been criticizing Adobe Systems lately for what Cupertino perceives as poor performance and design deficiencies in Adobe’s Flash web media technology, which it darned well wants to keep off the iPhone and iPad. Adobe, in turn, has been defending Flash, however gently, citing it as a great enabling technology that has got the web in large part to where it is today. Both companies are correct, and that’s the point that seems to be missed by most of the pundits standing around pointing at the fight. Flash has been vital to the success of the web, but Flash is old.

Apple’s preferred media architecture, HTML5, is the future of the web.

Web browsers have swallowed up most every app you used to have to install on your PC. Something like TurboTax needs forms to input data, display tables of numbers, and store your returns on their server. But if you want to have forms smart enough to know what’s a date and what’s a dollar; to draw piecharts; or store your W-2 on your laptop, then you need a new browser.

Flash always picked up where the browser left off, but it can’t talk to your webcam, store local files, or draw pixels directly to your screen. Now, for the first time, a cluster of technologies known as HTML5 allow a standards-based pathway to busting those barriers with canvas graphics, drawing video onscreen, smarter forms, and local storage for private data. So who needs Flash?

John Gruber is right: Flash is responsible for most of the crashes of my Mac. I can hardly blame Adobe for defending its very successful Flash franchise, though it feels strange coming from that nerdiest of nerdy companies. And I admit there are still a few things that Flash can do but HTML5 can’t, but the evolutionary path here is clear.

Where Flash a decade ago enabled browsers to do more, I can see a time coming soon when Flash will force browsers to do less than they might.

It’s time for a change.

I had intended to write a post about Google’s Chrome Operating System, but then the New York Times called looking for an Op-Ed piece on exactly that so I gave it to them.  Look for the column to appear Monday and I’ll put a link to it here.

The Times column is here.

Beyond the broader implications of the Chrome OS, one reader asks about the strategic involvement of Adobe Systems in the project, since Adobe is in the short list of companies mentioned in the Chrome OS FAQ.  Why is Adobe on this list, asks the reader, and is Google likely to buy Adobe?

I have no inside information here, just the usual informed guesswork.  The logical acquirer for Adobe, if the company is to ever be acquired, is still Apple, which would gain some real synergies in its entertainment endeavors as well as some needed technical depth.

What Google needs from Adobe is primarily Flash video.  Remember that YouTube made Flash video a factor in the streaming market and Google now owns YouTube.  Remember, too, that Apple’s iPhone has specifically shunned Flash, somewhat to its detriment.  Apple’s reasoning — that Flash takes too much horsepower for smart phones — no longer really stands with the iPhone 3GS shipping.  So Google’s embrace of Flash video for the Chrome OS AND Android helps YouTube while differentiating both products from Apple.

But does Google also need Adobe’s Flex and AIR platforms?  That is less clear.  Both Flex and AIR are runtime environments for cross-platform applications (Open Source applications in the case of Flex). Knowing a bit about how Google thinks, it is very possible that Flex and AIR will be seen as too heavy and — more importantly — too non-Google.  So we might see Flex but not AIR, for example.  I simply don’t know.

But I seriously doubt that Google will be buying Adobe or, for that matter, making ANY huge acquisitions in the months ahead.