Think of Apple as the catalyst. They may not be supplying the reagents to this reaction - That would be the Consumers, Publishers, and HTML 5 Technology providers (Browser Vendors - which I guess includes Apple's Safari) and Standards Bodies like W3C - but, it's Apple's refusal to put Flash on the insanely hyped, and potentially (probably?) popular iPad that shook up everyone (and I mean everyone - there is not a _single_ major content publisher that isn't reviewing their iPad strategy right now).

"Single Handily" is hyperbole, but it isn't incorrect to say that Apple _greatly_ accelerated the adoption of the open standards that are going to supplement Flash.