The story that's not getting told about Flash

I'm sorry, I have to respond to Anil's lauding 10th anninversary Flash post - by telling the story that's not being told.

Anil asks:

I'm not sure yet what story the links tell... any suggestions?

OK - here we go:

"Why wasn't vector based animation put into Director?"

Director at the time was the companies family jewels, had 10,000's of developers and had given birth to the CD ROM industry.  So then why was this simple extension - of adding vectors to the palette of objects that Director could animate - not done?

Can you count the lapse of time from when I left (1991) and when Flash was purchased?

Can you count what new innovative features the management of Macromedia had built into Director during that time period?  They sure knew how ot buy companies, but not innovate with their own code.

And why - when the dial-up web came along - and it was aparent that Director authored documents were 'too large' for this dial-up world - that all of a sudden vector based animation was important?

Couldn't Director have 'compiled' or output smaller sized files specifically designed for the dial-up web?

Do you even remember Director?

Has anyone said anything about the 10,000s of Director who were orphaned, fucked and left behind by Flash?  The company completely biforcated their product line and left Director to wither.

And how many years did it take for Flash to reinvent all the functionality that was in Lingo and Director - to begin with?

That's the untold story - Anil.