In the video media world, at least, this summer's got the intrigue of a gold-medal heavyweight bout between recognized international champions: In one corner is big bad Microsoft, like Mike Tyson in his prime, armed with Flash competitor Silverlight on one hand and and one hell of a proof-of-concept in the NBC Olympics site on the other. The combination landed Friday, kicking off coverage of Beijing 2008 with gorgeous live video in resolution that YouTubers can only dream of.

In the other corner, Adobe and Flash already own the mindshare in the long-term — because Flash is, in multimedia terms, already older than dirt and quite lovable, like George Foreman. In the short-term Adobe's ahead too, basking in a couple months' worth of headlines after a splashy June Acrobat 9 release. Recently, my colleague Darryl Taft broke down just exactly how much of a lead Adobe has over Microsoft and how they intend to maintain it.

The thing is, Microsoft and Adobe built their reputations and respective markets by empowering the everyday average office worker (or designer) to use technologies hitherto accessible only to tradespeople or brainy geeks. Desktop publishing, networking, even word processing were out of the realm of the average person until they came along.

Video, too, was best left to the camera dweebs.

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