Adobe's a tool company forged in the print world, where it's ok for a single, for-profit company to control an functionally option-less standard (See Pantone.)
Their biggest mistake was in buying Macromedia and trying to make Flash the Pantone of the web, instead of furthering the tools. It's the same thing as Microsoft when they tried to make an "open" document standard, which they naturally had inside- and first-knowledge of impending standard changes before their competitors.
