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Comment by pippy | Hacker News Reader

Client adoption isn't a problem any more, IE is declining to around 30% on most popular sites. The largest issue with killing flash is the legacy: video players, games, even carousels use it.

If omegle was released in the next months, it likely wouldn't use flash.

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Well, there is still one use case where IE is indispensable:

http://www.bourkedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/ie-po...

IE is only at 13% on Omegle. But I'd still hesitate to tell those users to get lost.

Lol... yea don't do that. But instead ask them politely :)

Fibs. The whole reason I'm using flash in my startup (and it is a major component atm) is because of IE share (and the relative immaturity of HTML5). Are you really telling me that you want to deny your service to a fresh install of windows?

While many people appreciate the benefit of better browsers there is still a significant portion that don't and hopping aboard this wagon prior to full adoption means that you exclude them or present roadblocks to them.

I have the added benefit of targeting (in part) the older generation with the software I produce making all this excitement muted without cross-browser consensus.

Out of interest, and not trying to be snarky, but do you have a solution in place for mobile as well?

If it we me and the choice was between supporting older browsers or supporting mobile, mobile would win out.

I think it depends strongly on your target market. If you're building B2B enterprise software used exclusively on PCs on a desk, in an office, with no remote access, the mobile might be less important.

It's still a tricky choice though. By going with Flash you're tying yourself into a dying technology which may not be such a hot choice if you're building a business [1]

I'd still try to go with js/html and shim away as best I could for older IEs.

[1]http://swombat.com/2011/12/7/picking-technologies

thats a very narrow market me thinks?

also, the sort of enterprise you speak of would certainly not be purchasing software like these - they'd stick with the trusted and known big name vendors. As they say, nobody ever got fired for using IBM (or microsoft).

It's not impossible to get your foot in the enterprise door, I've built several solutions for one particular client.

If you've got a contact who trusts you then you could certainly pitch solutions to them, and the prices you can charge are a lot higher.

Do you want to work in an environment where your target browser is IE6 though (not even joking).

Not yet mobile is the last crowd we're supporting. Our application is people that are going to die. You get me?

is for people*.

and yes, I'm putting it bluntly ;)

"people that are going to die" so it's aimed at.. everyone then? ;)

I work for a company whose target audience tends to be men over 65 years old... And we've seen mobile devices (specifically tablets) grow to nearly 17% of our traffic in the past two years.. I'd say mobile is critical, even more for seniors.

"Are you really telling me that you want to deny your service to a fresh install of windows?"

Does flash come pre-installed in Windows now? The last windows I used was XP, and it didn't come pre-installed in XP.

Just detect IE users and prompt them to download a plug-in.

Meanwhile, voice and video enable [your app] for the other 70% of your users.

Can argue that WebRTC is not really about universal calling regardless...and yet still a game-changer:

http://nextblitz.com/blog/webrtc-analysis/

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