I just had a talk with a reliable source (a high-placed developer at IBM) concerning a failed partnership between Macromedia and IBM, about 18 months ago, before the Adobe/Macromedia merger:

“IBM and Macromedia were in discussions to open-source the Flash player. It was down to signing the contracts when MM pulled out of the deal. IBM had already built a Flex plugin for WebSphere Studio before these events that was eventually shelved. IBM was told at the time that MM was not interested in Eclipse (on top of which WebSphere is built).”

I just about fell off my chair when I heard that. Macromedia to open-source the Flash player? I’m guessing the deal broke when it came to issues with Flash Lite. Why was IBM interested in Flash in the first place? Their Eclipse IDE for OpenLaszlo does indicate that they have some interest in the player, but I’m failing to see why exactly they would want to deal with Flash. To create a new brand of Rich Internet Apps built on DB2 and some undisclosed IBM server technology? I find it especially ironic that Macromedia finally decided to develop Flex 2 on top of Eclipse after refusing IBM’s offering of a ready-made plugin for WebSphere. WTF?

Note:: before anyone asks, this is not an April Fool’s. It’s still Friday in Canada.