Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch will soon be trading jerseys and going over to Team Apple—a move that has some Apple-watchers perplexed. Adobe confirmed Lynch's job change late Tuesday following a regulatory filing that revealed Lynch's plans. Apple later confirmed the move as well, saying Lynch's title at Apple would be VP of Technology and that he would be reporting to current hardware head Bob Mansfield.
"Kevin Lynch, Adobe CTO, is leaving the company effective March 22 to take a position at Apple," Adobe said in a statement sent to various media outlets. "We will not be replacing the CTO position; responsibility for technology development lies with our business unit heads under the leadership of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. Bryan Lamkin, who has recently returned to Adobe, will assume responsibilities for cross company research and technology initiatives as well as Corporate Development. We wish Kevin well in this new chapter of his career."
Lynch originally hails from Macromedia, which was purchased by Adobe in 2005, and his main focus was Flash. This is the main reason for raised eyebrows following the news of his departure for Apple. When former Apple CEO Steve Jobs published his "Thoughts on Flash" essay in 2010 that essentially explained why Flash would never make an appearance on Apple's iOS devices, Lynch personally penned Adobe's response, "Moving Forward."
"Clearly, a lot of people are passionate about both Apple and Adobe and our technologies. We feel confident that were Apple and Adobe to work together as we are with a number of other partners, we could provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch," Lynch wrote at the time. "However, as we posted last week, given the legal terms Apple has imposed on developers, we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices for both Flash Player and AIR."
Immediately after that, Lynch went on the offensive, accusing Apple of becoming Big Brother. "I think it's like 1984 in a lot of ways," he said during the 2012 Web 2.0 Expo. "I don't think it's the role of the company to exercise judgment on what people should use. That's the role of society and the law."
A little more than a year later, Adobe ended up killing off Flash for mobile.
So why would Lynch suddenly want to go over to the dark side? That part isn't entirely clear; AllThingsD cites an unnamed source saying Lynch originally wanted to be CEO of Adobe but eventually settled on a less senior role at Apple "coordinating the company's hardware and software teams." (Then again, the position may not be too shabby, given the fact that Bob Mansfield already tried to retire once and will eventually leave Apple again sometime in the future.)
We have no doubt that Lynch's former anti-Apple stance was fueled in part by his loyalty to Adobe, but some outsiders are still left wondering why Apple would hire him; others are hailing it as a huge win for Apple. Whatever the case, Lynch clearly wants to help Apple make its mobile products better—without the help of Flash.
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