Microsoft and Adobe held high level meetings to talk about how to slow Apple's momentum in the mobile market, Nick Bilton at the New York Times reports .

One option for the companies, according to Bilton: Microsoft would acquire Adobe.

We're not sure how that would help. Anybody have any thoughts?

Adobe's Flash does not work on the iPhone or the iPad. It's available on Android phones, but it reportedly doesn't work very well. It's not supposed to be on Windows Phone 7 at launch.

The news sent Adobe's stock soaring. It's up 8% on the news.

See Also: Windows Phone 7 Review: A Fresh Start

I think this is more about controlling Flash and Omniture (a recent Adobe Acquisition). Multiple divisions use Omniture and WebTrends to monitor site performance, so this would bring all that analysis in-house, as well as owning all the backend site data housed on Omniture's severs. Instant knowledge similar to Google Analytics. This would be a brilliant buy for MSFT. IMO this would be a brilliant acquisition. With the advent of 4G (LTE) networks coming next year, I believe the entire mobile landscape will shift. No longer dependent on the two reigning mobile OS's (Android/IponeOS). Much, much more of what you do on a mobile device will reside in the clouds...this would explain Microsoft's interest in owning Adobe. iWork rocks and it's easy to use. As far as Adobe goes, I decided to uninstall photoshop and illustrator after using them for about half a day since I lost the "too many menu items" battle, etc... so Adobe needs help. unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't do much better! and, of course, I have to use their tools every day; my opinion: the best stuff comes from "third parties." on a Mac, I don't even need "adobe acrobat" since Apple's "preview program" runs circles around Acrobat and, because PDF is a core piece of their graphics system, I can cut and paste PDF fragments into any iWorks document; Microsoft isn't even close to "that good" so maybe they really should get in bed with Adobe since their flagship development product, WPF, needs a major graphics overhaul, etc... if the average developer is going to produce marketable products with it! Have you not seen the NY Times Reader which is built in WPF? Or how about the development tools themselves; Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Studio 4 who's presentation layers are built in WPF?, How about Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Zune Desktop Client, and many of the stock apps in Windows 7. The British Library uses Turning the Pages (http://www.turningthepages.com/) to server up thousands of books in digital format. The Zurich Airport operators use a WPF application which provides them with an immediate overview of the real-time status of every plane. Interknowlogy (http://www.interknowlogy.com/) built an application for NASA called Mars Bound using WPF. A Surface version was built for NASA's Museum and Win 7 version was designed to teach children in a classroom setting Seems like nothing but acts of desperation emanating from Redmond these days. Sure they're still piling in the dough from the monopoly cash cows that Windows and Office, but in 3~5 years or longer-term, all that could crumble like a house made of deck of cards. And they know it. It's a very interesting 3-way war being waged between Apple, Microsoft, and Google. All have their unique strengths and weaknesses but, all in all, Apple does seem to be best positioned at this point in time. The fact that Apple has total control over both the hardware and the software is the key differentiator for Apple that no one else can match. I certainly don't since flash and silverlight are old technologies; i.e. I did some WPF stuff ( which is silverlight's mother ) and it doesn't run well on older hardware; so, IMO, I think Microsoft has to start getting serious about creating tools that can work in "low RAM environments" as well as "high RAM environments" since their tech has to work on low cost cell phones and be mindful of low power constraints. that's why android and iOS can eat Microsoft's lunch since Microsoft's technology stack ( and Adobe's ) are pigs that aren't as well behaved as android and iOS. I doubt AIR has more adoption than Silverlight. Microsoft has partnered with Netflix and the Olympics to get Silverlight loaded on as many computers as possible. As for Reader, the PDF spec is now open, so there's no value in buying Adobe for PDFs. As for Photoshop/Illustrator, it seems questionable whether the DOJ would allow a company with 90% of the OS market to buy another company with such a high percentage of their market. Actually, Microsoft is not sure what they are after either. PDF is the core of Apple's OS X graphic's stack! so I think Microsoft sees the writing on the wall! that's why I think you should reconsider your observation that "adobe owns the PDF market." IMO, history might show us that Apple owned that market! one of the nice things about iWork is that Keynote ( Apple's powerpoint ) can export to Flash, so OS X is a VERY powerful platform; I stopped using windows because, to do the same things, I was forced to buy a million different pieces of software and that nickel and diming was far worse than paying Apple up front for great stuff!