While not specific to that quote, the feeling I get from Adobe's comments is that they are trying to use a lot of PR double talk to cover up the real issues. Take for example their stance on security:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-secure-is-flash-heres-what-adobe-wont-tell-you/2152

The same goes for this whole "open" thing. Gruber wrote a great summary here:

http://daringfireball.net/2010/05/flash_almost_as_open_as_office

It's giving me flashbacks to the way Microsoft was acting about security and openness a few years back. Microsoft initially tried the smokescreen tactic when their products were being exploited left and right, before locking down and putting honest effort into securing their systems. Same thing on the open side. They embraced Java enough to make their own incompatible version of it (J#), while wooing developers with this new "open" language. Glad I never wasted time learning to code in J#, since it ended up getting Microsoft into legal trouble.

Is Apple any better regarding open technology? Nope. But Apple is at least pretty honest about it. I know up front that my iPhone isn't an open platform, and due to Apple's honesty, I can evaluate the device and decide if it's right for me or not. Adobe on the other hand is touting Flash as this big open thing, encouraging people to come join hands and release more Flash content, supported devices and so on.