While Microsoft is deeply entrenched on the desktop and Google guns for the cloud, veteran firm Adobe is looking to walk the line by uniting both perspectives.

At today’s Max conference in San Francisco, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch will speak about the balance between the desktop and the cloud. Regarding the topic, “it’s a balance of the client and cloud together that makes for the most effective applications and the best development,” he said.

Adobe, well-known for its popular Flash technology, is in the unique position to leverage this outlook. While Google grapples with the limitations of Java and Microsoft continues on the desktop, Adobe has pushed Flash solutions which are hosted remotely and processed locally.

The online Photoshop service has been a powerful demonstration of Adobe’s approach to their philosophy. While the application is web-accessible, all the computationally-intensive tasks of editing and manipulation harness the desktop’s power to run.

Adobe has also brought their increasingly-successful AIR, the Adobe Integrated Runtime, into the market to further connect the cloud and the desktop. AIR allows developers to provide desktop applications that use local Java, Flash and HTML rendering horsepower in bringing web resources to the desktop. With the addition of Flash 10 technology, AIR will also be capable of 3D graphics, audio mixing and superior font support.

As the Max conference kicks into full swing, Adobe hopes to demonstrate their company’s forward-looking philosophy. With Flash 10 on a smartphone, new versions of their popular offerings and a healthy dose of optimism, things are looking bright for the venerable company.