Brightcove’s Jeremy Allaire provides the best non-frothing at the mouth breakdown between HTML5 and Flash that I’ve seen so far. Some particularly good snippets. Check out the full article on TechCrunch.

Flash vs. HTML5 for web apps

for a large number of web productivity apps, the HTML5 approach will become the preferred model…There are also a class of Web Productivity Apps where Flash is the preferred runtime, especially those that involve working with and manipulating media such as images, audio and video.

Flash vs. HTML5 on handhelds

Three runtime platforms will gain adoption and often even inter-mingle — HTML5 content and apps, Native Apps (that may contain Flash and HTML content), and HTML5 apps that contain and leverage Flash Player.

Flash vs. HTML5 for Video

First, right now, there is a lack of common approach among browser makers on what format to use for the HTML video object…All of this is a long way of saying that there is still significant format tension and that it will take a long time for it to be resolved in next-gen browsers.

Online video publishers will only adopt standards that have extremely broad adoption. Until penetration rates consistently reach 80%, it will be hard for publishers to switch and adopt a single, new solution. It is more likely that HTML5 Video adoption will reach that critical mass on hand-held devices before it does on the PC/Web.

It’s hard for tech geeks, business wonks and ridiculous company fanboys to accept that there may be no clear winners. That X won’t KILL Y immediately (look at how popular IE6 still is even after 5+ years of heavy disdain and criticism), but Jeremy Allaire’s article was the measured type of response I expected to hear after Steve Jobs Flash/HTML5 fanfare and didn’t get. Flash is currently 3x+ more prevalent than HTML5 capable browsers (discounting IE and accounting for FF and webkit browsers, even though both of them still have poor standard support). What rational person could possibly expect niche browsers to drive the mainstream adoption of a new technology standard? Sure, it could happen in 5+ years, but does Steve Jobs expect his customers to look at vague cubes during that time?

However, I do believe there is an opportunity to develop new technologies on mobile that can enable rich interactions that I’m not sure HTML5 or Flash is best suited for. Flash is ideal for bringing the desktop experience to mobile, which is fine for now, but clearly a shoehorning of technology into a less-than-ideal form factor.