Remix, for example, was written using Flex, the development environment for Adobe's Flash Player.

Chizen noted that Google's wealth of technical talent in Web development makes it the most likely candidate to challenge Adobe as it offers hosted media-editing applications. He indicated that Adobe is still weighing its options in regard to how it will deliver hosted, ad-supported services.

Its deal with PhotoBucket around Adobe Remix is not exclusive. The partnership arrangement allows Adobe to share advertising dollars without having to invest in the computing infrastructure and people to operate the Web site, he said.

But revenues from Web ads could potentially justify an Adobe investment in offering hosted services directly, Chizen said. "Once we see that it could be a significant revenue producer, then maybe we'll want to deal with it," he said.

The company already offers Acrobat Connect, a service for Web conferencing introduced with the most recent release of its Acrobat PDF reader.