BUILD 2011: Windows 8 for Tablets Will Not Have Flash

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Adobe is losing ground with its Flash platform in today’s post-PC era. As devices go mobile, there will be a big concern with battery life and performance, given their low-power nature. Apple was first to ditch Flash in favor of HTML5. Now it’s Microsoft’s turn.

At the BUILD conference, Microsoft is touting its upcoming Windows 8 operating system. A big departure from its previous operating system efforts, Windows 8 is actually said to usher in the post-post-PC era. While Apple popularized the tablet platform, Microsoft is introducing Windows 8 as a single, convergent platform for both portable and desktop devices.

But while Windows 8 is designed to run on both tablets and PCs, one issue would be the capabilities of the hardware that the OS is installed on. Portable devices will have lower-powered processors, and will need to be as power-efficient as possible. As such, Microsoft has decided to keep the Metro edition of Windows 8 plugin-free. This means that apps like Internet Explorer 10 on tablets will not have plugins like Adobe Flash.

Microsoft says they want to keep the user experience on mobile devices, with focus on the Metro UI and modern browsing standards. Microsoft’s IE team lead Dean Hachamovitch says plugins are “not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web,” adding that IE 10 without the excess baggage of plugins “improves battery life as well as security, reliability and privacy for consumers.”

He goes further to explain that plugins had been an essential component of the early web experience, given the basic nature of markup for so long. But as HTML5 as an emerging standard will offer rich and dynamic content without the need for localized plugins.

For now, Microsoft says the desktop variants of IE10 on Windows 8 will continue to support plugins. But given that Flash may already be losing relevance due to the emergence of mobile devices as a preferred means of accessing content, Adobe has actually been developing server-side processing of Flash elements through Flash Media Server 4.5. Apple criticizing Flash for being a closed platform that hogs precious resources is one thing. But with the dominant desktop OS maker Microsoft likewise challenging the relevance of Flash, Adobe has made a smart move in trying to work around device limitations with its so-called Flash-free Flash.