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Longhorn's Flash Killer?
SunSaw writes "Erin Joyce reports on internetnews.com that "Top developers at Microsoft are working on a new graphics and animation toolset for Longhorn (the next generation of Windows) that could spell trouble for Macromedia's popular Flash MX and Director MX animation tools".
Flash's yet-to-be-released competition from M$ is code named "Sparkle" but it wasn't demonstrated during Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles last week.
Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?"
Now FOX can sue Microsoft for using their Mr. Sparkle idea. I guess that's assuming they go to market with the name. They've done it in the past: Windows NT. The NT stood for N-10, which was the test suite they used to test in. I guess marketing re-designated it to mean new technology.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Meet Sparkle's new mascot.
ObSimpsonsRef
Trolling is a art,
...be "For lucky best web experience, use MS Sparkle"?
I work for Microsoft and am therefore posting anonymously. While this was done on purpose, it was buy a sole developer, and not a decision by Microsoft. That developer has since been let go.
. Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?"
No. Stop generating FUD. Sheesh.
"All your base are belong to this file I send in order to have your advice."
The question is, is it cross-platform? If it only works on Windows Longhorn machines I don't think anyone is going to use it as it's catering to only some of your possible viewers.
Lets see- Flash killer, by company that will never port it to Linux or OS X...
[stands up and cheers MS on]
Please help metamoderate.
Microsoft will probably take SVG, screw with the standard and pass it off as their own, as usual.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I think Sparkle (how creative is that... hmm, Sparkle/Flash....) will actually help Macromedia's sales of Flash MX. Not knowing anything about Sparkle, my guess is that people will use it to learn about Flash animations because it's included in the OS. Once people get to know how it works and such, they'll go out and by the "best of breed" solution, Macromedia Flash MX, to improve their skills.
Deja vu!
Is DoJ reading this?
This
i think it's safe to say that there are enough macromedia loyalists to stand by flash.... Microsoft is just doing it's same old try again at taking over stuff...
...so, no.
Whatever ad designer got the great idea to use flash should be beaten with a clue bat. Thank goodness for the flash click to play plugin for firebird.
It's going to be as annoying as Flash, but my boss won't be able to make me install it on my Linux dev box. (Even if there is an OS X version, there will be a penguin skating in hell before they release a runtime for Linux.)
With a bit of luck this could cut down my exposure to annoying and pointless flash animations by as much as 50%. It might even cut out 50% of dynamic adverts too, without me needing to feel guilty about being a net parasite (it won't be my fault after all).
Beep beep.
The end of Flash?? Internet users every are torn by the dilemma... Spiffy webcomics and animations made in flash... versus garish, insanely spastic websites that cause siezures...
Will the good die with the bad?
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Shouldn't that be "SPANKle"?
'Cause ya know it's gonna suck
Yes.
Microsoft should fire the person responsible for the "Sparkle" name ($10 says it's the same who came out with "Clippy") and hire somebody who would give it a more impressive name, such as "Lighting".
If Mozilla's SVG support would ever get finished, it would be a viable alternative to flash/msanimation/whatever. Then, people may be installing the "Mozilla Plugin" for internet explorer that would let sites use gecko for rendering SVG and/or standards compliance pages. Eventually, people would get tired of running sites in a plugin, and may start to use the bundled firebird browser.
...with its product activation gibberish as described in this tale of woe.
The Army reading list
at the size of Microsoft's family jewels... Here they had the perfect chance to step aside and allow someone else to have a chunk of the pie and NO! they had to gobble that up too! They're just asking for people to scream MONOPOLY in their faces.
The guitars sound good, now give me about 10db more on the cow bell.
Macromedia will die after this. Microsoft abuses their power left and right.
Who's going to start up an open source project to combat this? I'd actually like to see an open source web animation project. I enjoyed playing with Flash before I moved to Linux.
http://www.blogzine.net
Is this surprising?
NOT AT ALL
Is not really new news when it comes to Microsoft trying to kill its competitions through any mean necessary.
Sure other companies do that too, but the scary thing is that Microsoft CAN DO IT and WILL DO IT.
Where's the FTC when you need them.
Perhaps this would be a good time for Macromedia to get as many flash players on as many platforms as possible. They should open the source.
Figures some Slashbot has to do the OH SO FUNNY dollar sign-for-the-S in MS... Way to go, fanboy.
everyone is posting that it won't be for linux. Are you shitting me? What about the C# mono compiler?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Top developers at Microsoft (Quote, Chart) are working on a new graphics and animation toolset for Longhorn (the next generation of Windows) that could spell trouble for Macromedia's (Quote, Chart) popular Flash MX and Director MX animation tools, sources familiar with the situation told internetnews.com.
.NET runtime environment. That would ultimately mean developers could have Flash- and Director-like animation and graphics tools ready-built for them soon after Longhorn hits the marketplace.
.NET tools ("Whidbey") and a host of new graphics and animation rendering features in the Longhorn operating system.
.NET application that has access to all the APIs in Longhorn, and effectively takes animation beyond the browser to enable, say, three videos running at the same time as other graphics and animation.
Code-named "Sparkle," the tools under development would be integrated with Microsoft's
One source familiar with the project, who saw examples of the "Sparkle" toolset integrated with Microsoft's C# , said early prototypes have given rise to talk of its potential as a "Flashkiller" or even a "Director-killer," referring to Macromedia's popular Flash animation software and Director tool, which is best known for building small animations for CDs.
A spokesperson for Macromedia said the company does not comment on speculation or rumors about products not yet in release.
As for how the "Sparkle" project could pan out, a source familiar with the situation said much depends on the Longhorn build, which continues to morph even after the public airing of its pre-beta build (build 4051 of Longhorn) during Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles last week.
The news of yet another code-named project for Longhorn follows a flood of information about Microsoft's future product builds that rained down on the five-day PDC. Attendees got their hands on pre-beta versions of SQL Server ("Yukon"), Visual Studio
Although demonstrations of Longhorn's capabilities at the conference did not include "Sparkle," a closer look at Longhorn's capabilities provides clues that Microsoft's vision for computing is based on providing tools for increasingly rich media and 3D vector graphics capabilities in computers and computing devices.
With graphics processors apparently following the same principles of Moore's Law and roughly doubling their data density every 18 months, as prices for computers continue to fall, many in the technology industry think the industry could be at another inflection point similar to the arrival of the browser in 1995. Only this time, advances in computing will be with animation, 3D and other rich media.
A lot of the goals Microsoft is aiming at with "Sparkle" are the same as those Flash is looking to accomplish, one source said. But the tool goes beyond Flash in delivering a
Whether "Sparkle" would ship after Longhorn ships, which is now widely believed to be in 2006, is still an open question.
The news comes as the company continues its hiring spree of talent from all sectors of the technology industry, including former staff from Adobe, and as it doubles its R&D budget for its 2004 fiscal year to about $7 billion.
Still, for all the razzle-dazzle response that "Sparkle" has inspired by those that have seen it in action, the tool could also end up in Visual Studio or be given away with the operating system, one source said. It's too soon to tell.
And it's not the first time Microsoft, or Adobe for that matter, have tried to take on Macromedia's Flash, which is installed as a downloadable plug-in on roughly 95 percent of desktops that are Internet-enabled, said Scott Hamlin, a director of content for http://www.flashcomponents.com. (Jupitermedia, the parent company of this publication, licenses Hamlin's content in Flashcomponents.com, which is part of its ArtToday.com division.)
"Flash is one of the best technologies I know of that compresses vect
Flash? Sparkle? What's next?
Pop?
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The problem with flash is that its windows only. Any technology that is windows only needs to be shitholed. For example, text files can only be read in windows. On unix, you have to do strings file.txt to read it.
Windows proprietary software is bad and should not be used.
isn't this essentially building a vector graphics system into the OS? Gee wiz, what an amazing innovation from Microsoft that's due in TWO years or more. NOT!
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Flash has been around for years, people make a living off of it...hell i make a living off of it...why should i change to microsofts new program? so i can learn a whole new toolset just to do what flash already does? stop smoking crack and spreading FUD.
Does nothing but give credit to Macromedia. This is standard practice for microsoft.
As soon as a standard or a competitor's application gains traction, Microsoft comes out with an announcement they'll be doing a product that is strikingly similar.
Still, this is excellent validation for Macromedia and SVG.
...I doubt Slashdot's commitment to MS Sparkle's motion.
have an astonishingly buggy piece of software tied intrinsically to their newly released incredibly buggy operating system that will have about 10% of the functionality that Macromedia Flash has now? One that only by the 3rd or 4th version (in another 3 years) might be adequate? Damn, I'm selling my Macromedia stock right now!
I guess that puts Free Software advocates, the FSF. Linux and *BSD geeks, IBM and Macromedia all in the same boat crying foul on Microsoft.
Anyway, goes to show that the the Antitrust Trial meant nothing to Microsoft, they just went back to the good old "Embrace, Extend and Alienate" strategy (i.e. "Business As Usual".
Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
Why does EVERY story have to end with a "Is this the beginning of the end for ...?" or "Can ... survive?" or some other such nonsense?
Seriously, what's the point?
"Can't you see that I am serious?"
"Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?"
No, it's another nail in the anti-trust coffin for Microsoft.
blog |
If it were to be the beginning of the end for flash/macromedia, they would HAVE to make sparkle compatible with previous versions of IE. Since most people STILL are using windows 98, they won't have the cutting edge IE, and there is less of a chance that they would upgrade to a new IE. thus, sparkle would have to work w/older versions of IE. ofcourse, in the end its up to the web developer, and since everyone caters to the masses (IE) it seems like it may be some time before this actually does 'kill' flash.
Didn't they try to replace java wiht .net? What ever happened to .net anyway?
Rants done the right way www.koudijscanada.com
Please folks try convince Macromedia that their only salvation from the Microsoft borg is to fully open source their Flash specs.
Please make an open source , multi platform, components based player like Real is doing with Helix.
I think that way they can survive, otherwise Microsoft will swallow them like other unwanted competitors.
What do you think folks ?
Any prediction of the Flash-future ?
I'll bet that it will not require a plugin for IE, making web animation display on windows+IE avoid the plugin patent.
Not good at all for Flash.
Whenever I see "is this the beginning of the end" I know the submitter is full of it. First it was that Java DB, Prevaylor or something. Now it's this, next it'll be that. Face it people, it's not the beginning of the end. It's not even the end to the beginning. Chances are, Macromedia and MS will fight it out, MS will win (hopefully. It's a pain to tell computer incompetent people to go download the Flash plugin. They go "doh, what's a plugin"), or MS might buy out Macromedia (they do make that Dreamweaver site builder - nice piece of software) or MS's software might fall into a totally different niche than what Flash does. It's going to take at least another 5 -6 years for this saga to start unrolling, so keep your hats on, people.
Those graphic designers are hard to get to switch to something new. Many know flash and Action Script so well, I can't see them switching. I'm guessing M$ will somehow disable Flash support in their browser.
Sparkle? Couldn't they come up with a better name? The blatant rip-off of not only ideas, but names, is insane.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Hold on juuuust a minute!
What exactly do they mean by "top developers at microsoft"?
Is this a group of developers microsoft has kept in hiding for all these years to be used as a secret weapon, or are these the same dolts who slapped windows together?
offensive geek gear and more!
Site was crawling, so I managed to upload it to my webspace
Saw a presentation yesterday by an MS techie wherein he explained that SQL-server, .Net, and IE are all being "integrated" into the OS (Oh, and the registry is going away. Former registry content will now be distributed across directories into a new file type). Now a Flash-a-like product as well.
Nice to know that MS is paying strict attention to the anti-trust settlement conditions.
This is bad news for everyone. Knowing Microsoft "sparkle" will undoubtedly be some kind of crap technology that will be bundled with Windows. Despite the fact that it sucks, developers will quickly adopt it because of Microsoft incentives, leaving Windows users with a crappy flash-replacement for IE which will be built into Longhorn and Mac/Linux/Mozilla people with nothing. This is exactly what the MS antitrust case was supposed to prevent. Maybe I'm not being fair to microsoft, but what can you expect given their trackrecord?
Didn't MS already have a Flash like product called Liquid Motion? I seem to remember a friend of mine having a book on it. What happened to that?
... given that the website content of MSN 1.0 prominently featured what was then a relatively unknown animation technology called Splash from a company called FutureWave (circa 1996 or so). Macromedia subsequently bought FutureWave, then renamed the product as Shockwave Flash.
..."
I can't say I'm too terribly surprised, though; the tour application that comes with WinXP was developed in Flash, and was one of the few media files that came with the OS that needed a third-party application. Someone in Redmond had to be saying "if only we had something like this
Yes. Microsofts "Innovative" products always eliminate all the competition. I mean, look at Microsoft's Movie Maker. iMovies was OBLITERATED. And Microsoft Access really got rid of all the other database solutions. Microsoft IIS blew Apache out of the water. Microsoft obviously the ultimate in software.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
Actually all the specifications are being released to the ECMA, and it's going to be in XML. So anyone can make a compatible, competing parser if they so desire.
this would be a good time for macromedia to diversify into linux development studios..that was once the biggest thing holding me back from linux..now of course it's the games.
In other news, Macromedia's stock value went down 1.5% today. Somebody please carpet clue-bomb stock markets.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Can we ask W3C to rename SVG Animation to "Brilliance" or "Twinkle" or "Somesuch"?
Something to compete with both Flash and the emerging SVG? That's a tough one, even if it's Microsoft we're talking about. Remember that Flash has a large community of loyal followers. And most of the people who don't like Flash are in favor of SVG because they see it as the lesser evil where standards and content are concerned. There's also SMIL and other similar technologies covering what's left of the playground. Where exactly can "Sparkle" fit in?
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
Flash might be annoying, heave used for the wrong reasons but it is cross platform including Linux, FreeBSD, MAC and IRIX. I would expect solaris as well. Basically it has support for alomst 100% of computers out there. Can we ever see MS support all those OS's? I dont think so.
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
It's so nice to see that their time in the criminal justice system has taught Microsoft it's lesson about why it's illegal and wrong to bundle new software targeting an existing market in with its monopoly-powered operating system, as opposed to releasing their new software as a separate product and letting it compete on its own merits.
Oh wait. They haven't learned a darn thing, have they?
Bummer.
While I can understand expressions of relief that this may free non-MS OS users from the annoyance, the bigger danger is, as with all things MS, a large amount of content is only made available in "Sparkle" format.
This hasn't happened to a large degree with Flash, but I don't think Macromedia is as skilled (or rich) in the embrace/extend/extinguish or plain old LOCK OUT strategies MS specializes in. So careful what you wish for!
The only way that this would have a powerful effect on Macromedia's market would be if the developer tools were greatly superior to Macromedia's, and I would be astonished if MS was able to pull off such a thing. Both the Shockwave and Flash dev tools are extremely mature, powerful products that MS is going to have a hard time topping, and even my grandmother's old p100 has a Flash Player on it--they're pretty much ubiquitous...
<tinfoil>Of course, if they accidentally break compatibility with the Flash player in IE, there could be some problems. Not that MS would ever do such a nasty thing.</tinfoil>
Don't Panic!
Check out some of the cool demos at www.laszlosystems.com. You can write code in xml and javascript that compiles into flash to create some really nifty applications.
LOL, Just like how M$ photo editing tool set was going to kill off Photoshop. and Frontpage was going to kill off Go Live and Dreamweaver. oh oh and Movie Maker was going to kill Premiere.
its going to be like all of M$ other software they bundle with the OS only the poorly educated will uses it until they relies its crap and go out and get the real deal stuff. What Professional uses Movie Maker or Frontpage? Really?
All this will do is cause more crappy web pages that are over loaded with Flash.
-------- -Cap
~Bommers, Why did it have to be Bommers!?!
Complete speculation, but I always thought it was kinda funny they didn't put up more of a fight before changing ie due to the eolas patent suite.
I don't know why everyone is so excited about MS killing Flash.
If they do it, its because they have replaced Flash with their own version of it!!!! So, not only will you still have annoying Flash-type things, but the parent company will be one that is notorious for crappy software.
Flash is annoying when used improperly, but that doesn't mean it should go away. Especially when it is replaced by something from Microsoft. Just wait until you see Clippy popping up in those dynamic ads, saying "It seems you are trying to surf the net! Would you like to: Buy Viagra? Lose weight? Surf the net faster?"
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Well, Microsoft came out with MSPAINT and yet Photoshop is still in business.
Sparkle is a better name than that 'DirectAnimation' or 'MusicProducer' software they were sending me about 5 years ago. While I am certain this is going to be a dumb product that will fail to make any real impact in the long run, Microsoft is doing better with the names these days.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Microsoft has shown time and time again that they will not embrace cross platform compatibility or open standards. The combination of the established Flash userbase, immense library of third party tools and training, open standard, and Macromedia's commitment to cross platform compatibility will ensure the dominance of Flash. If I was Macromedia, I would not be worried in the slightest amount.
Anybody remember the last Flash killer from MS?
Is this the beginning of the end? It's statements like this make me question my commiment to not maim strangers.
We are talking about an OS that is still, for most intents and purposes, vapor ware ( yes, I know there are demos out. Those resemble the final product about as much as prototype cars resembing their final counter parts ). And it's a FEATURE on top of this vapor, which is itself vapor.
If this begins the downfall of any company, I would argue that company was already headed to the courts to file chapter 11 anyway.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Given how many people are stilling running Windows 9x/ME plus all the people who will not upgrade to Longhorn from XP, not to mention those using *gasp* other operating systems it seems to me that focusing on the fancy new graphics features of Longhorn as a selling point is, well, missing the point.
Flash, as annoying as it is, just has such a huge cross platform installed base. I doubt ad agencies are going to jump and use something just because it is from Microsoft if they risk losing a huge number of potential customers.
Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?
God, I hope so. Flash is the absolute worst thing to hit the web since the blink tag. And no, stupid little animations don't make it better.
My browsing experience improved considerably the day I uninstalled (thanks for making it so non-easy, macromedia!) flash.
Now if only web designers around the world would realize that I go to their website for information, not to see their cute little flash animation intro. I know you're a frustrated movie/art student. Deal with it and let me get the info I need.
My only problem with this is that if Microsoft's integrated toolset takes off, then they'll make it completely impossible to remove.
Flash has a higher market share than any other technology. Higher market share than java, acrobat, quicktime, windows media player, etc. It is a mature technology developed for both designers AND developers (especially with Macromedia's new Royale technology).
The end for macromedia? Hah. They are making millions selling Flash to handset makers as the next platform for wireless games. They have a huge market penetration for web developers. And they still make a pretty penny selling products like Fireworks.
Also, I'm sick of everyone talking about Longhorn. It's a product that won't be out for two years. What state will Flash be in when Longhorn finally gets released in 2005-2006? M$ is using it's PR machine to stall the computer industry just like it did with Windows 95. Granted, it was a big improvement over Win 3.11, but it stalled sales of other technologies like OS/2. Longhorn will not contain half the features they are touting because they won't be ready for primetime OR they will burden the system so much that they will be left out for performance reasons. Meanwhile, people aren't upgrading their old windows machines to a better OS such as Linux or Mac OS X (designers) because they think the holy grail is right around the corner. DAMN VAPORWARE! Anyway, that's just my opinion...
But the tool goes beyond Flash in delivering a .NET application that has access to all the APIs in Longhorn,
Wow, that sounds like a security hole just waiting to be exploited. I'm sure Microsoft will make some attempt to cover their butts, but they haven't had the greatest track record so far. Look at ActiveX - some unwitting user clicks a "yes" button on a popup, and suddenly a program can do whatever it wants to the machine. I know Microsoft has time to make it secure, and maybe they'll surprise me and do that, but I'm not holding my breath.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
Anyway since Macromedia has little to fear from the iApps I wonder if they shouldn't focus more on Macs. i.e. use unique features of OSX. Otherewise the Microsoft monolith may take them down. (cough Corel cough) On the other hand Apple's definitely moved into the application market in OSX. Look at FCP and many of their other products. Nothing really competing with Macromedia though.
Of course I suspect Macromedia will do what Borland appears to be doing: embrace and extend. i.e. Just as Borland adds UML to out .NET Visual Studio, perhaps Macromedia will expand Microsoft's offerings and integrate them into their products. By having the best media creation kit they can then still benefit if Microsoft succeeds.
Sparkle, Sparkle, Sparkle!
Wasn't there a product like this that the DirectX guy all ready developed called "Chrome", which Microsoft shelved? I remember reading about it in an old Boot magazine from about '97. It was supposed to have done the same type of thing.
Of course, I also remember the first technology transfer with SGI that was supposed to give an OpenGL API to transcend DirectX that was called Fire something that never went anywhere either.
Heard that before.. Same thing was said about XFree not even a month ago. Then there's the BSD trolls telling us that BSD is dying.
What's next? The beginning of the end for audio CDs? Oh, wait...
Semantics is the gravity of abstraction
MR. SPARKLE:
Get out of my way, all of you! This is no
place for loafers. Join me or die. Can you do any less?
www.geocities.com/chuckhoyt/mrsparkle.html
The product is not out.
The product was not demonstrated.
The product will ship several years from now.
And it's already being touted as being a "nail in the coffin for Macromedia?"
WTF?! I'm as annoyed with Flash as anybody, but I'm not following the logic here.
MS vaporware means people should start packing their stuff in boxes and departing their desks?
My company is making a product called 'Strip.' It does cool things. When I release it, it will be the end of Microsoft as we know it. We don't have a demo. We don't have a shipping product. But 'Strip' will revitalize the stagnant browser marketplace. Just wait. You'll see.
So...basically MS is planning on bundling their version of a popular product with their latest OS. Gee...where have I heard that plan before?
I'm so glad that MS has learned their lesson from the anti-trust trial.
On the bright side, maybe all of those used-to-work-for-Netscape lawyers will have something to do now.
Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?
Maybe.
I'm guessing this is a Macromedia killer the way Windows Media player/formats/streaming were a Realplayer killer.
In other words, too little too late to dominate the genre. Flash/Shockwave is pretty entrenched, and I don't think this will be enough to topple them for a long time to come.
Just my opinion.
I have trouble believing this. First off, it'll be a new thing for all the web developers to learn. And, because it's Microsoft, it most likely won't be ported to other platforms, and open-source people will go nuts. Also, the article-writer forgets that everyone is used to flash -- developers and end users alike.
Flash has been released to the public for a very long time. It is extremely commonplace. I think I remember reading somewhere that Flash is installed on over 70% of computers accessing the internet. While it may be easy for Microsoft to get it's program on computers, it will not be able to get developers to make the content. They're going to have a very hard time winning over enough demand for it.
Microsoft jumping into this new area is just like it did with the xBox. But, it won't be as easy for them to get people to make content in "Sparkle" as it was for them to get game designers for the xBox.
I can't wait to see how this works out.
Probably half of professional Flash MX developers are using Macs anyway. There are half a BILLION installed Flash 5 players. Flash MX works very well with Fireworks and Dreamweaver as well. Will Sparkle work with FrontPage? What are they going to replace Freehand and Fireworks with? What about Coldfusion?
Not as simple as it sounds.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
That's the internal code name, not the public released product name. I somehow doubt that they would open themselves to a lawsuit that easily. Anyone remember LiquidMotion? I bet Sparkle is headed in the same direction.
Let other developers for it's software break new ground (many many fail) and when a new technology becomes popular, they clone it.
Macromedia may take sue, years later after they've been pushed out of the market, M$ will settle for a small fraction of the companies present worth. M$ has done this hundreds of times in the past and will continue to do so. Developing for a microsoft places you in a tech tree which is almost boundless for microsoft.
Dividing up M$ seems to be the only solution. They've never had an original idea other then profit from the hard work of others.
A little birdie told me their planning on coordinating with the FCC to bring some fairly harsh regulations to the internet. Doing so will effectively kill off open source by newer licencing/regulation throught the FCC.
So what if MS packs in another free application that is supposed to "kill the competition" with Longhorn. Look at other such programs: Frontpage Express, Wordpad, and the ever so popular video editing program Movie Maker. Sure they are great programs to play with, but no real professional is going to make a webpage in FP or write a document in wordpad, or edit movies in Movie Maker. "Sparkle" will only be another MS "innovation" flop.
Doesn't anyone remember last time microsoft tried the same stunt with the now dead liquid motion? I suspect the same thing will happen to the gay-ly named Sparkle, macromedia software is basically made by developers for developers whereas micrsoft developers build things that are so stupidly easy to use that they lack the advanced features that developers require like actionscripting.
No-one uses VBscript, or Activex, and no-ones going to use Microsoft's Sparkle thing... Why ?
Same reason the others failed, not cross platform. Flash, with all its good, or bad points is at least , to some extent crossplatform.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
whom make a software running on MS OS are a target for the Neext MS OS !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Considering all the stuff when it comes to internet dominance that microsoft has planned in the "longhorn wave", killing flash should be the least of our worries. can anyone say hailstorm? DISCLAIMER: I am not a linux zealot I do not believe that evil is embedded in every tenth line of microsoft code I have purchased versions of windows, and develope for windows software as my profession i simply find the direction that windows is heading with "service based computing" to be repellant, and have no desire to let microsoft tax me for using the internet or my own pc.
As part of their court-ordered settlement, what if Microsoft comes out with a browser upgrade that breaks your Flash plugin. Maybe that levels the playing field. Suddenly no one has either plugin.
As the only developer in my company who knows enough about our content management system I end up having to do the macromedia integration work. Last week I wrote a whole bunch of ActionScript 2 (ECMAscript between you and me) classes that allow all various types of flash applications to talk with our server by XML.
.Net Sparkle applets instead of Flash.
My impression of working with Flash is that it is a product desperate to dis-associate it'self from the version 1-4 days, when it was a product only suitable for designers. The MX2004 product whilst lacking in stability provides a more robust (semi-strongly typed) scripting language.
The addition of scriptable components for managing text, media and sound makes it an almost credible application prototyping environment.
In order to get my work done I had to find myself a spare computer in the office that has Windows on it because Macromedia refuse to support anything other than Windows and Mac (badly). The fact that most web developers are running LAMP (Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL) seems to have evaded the Flash development team.
I suspect that this competition from microsoft is exactly what they need to encourage them to produce a Linux port of their flagship application. Previously Macromedia claimed that the Linux market was insignificant, however they will soon find that their windows market will shrink when the MS developers decide they prefer to script
A Linux port would be fresh grounds for Macromedia, and a welcome addition to the range of commercial software available for Linux. It would also be a good way for Macromedia to get some revenge on Microsoft who seem to be about to pull the carpet from beneath Macromedia's feet.
It never fails, mention Flash here and you get a couple hundred posts bashing Flash as nothing more than an annoyance.
.gif and .jeg as well.
What gives?
Flash, believe it or not, provides a very good alternative to Java Applets for browser based GUI's. I've used it to create multi-user services and many a data-driven application.
IMHO, it provides much better graphics support than Java and allows me to tie it into non-Java based services very handily.
I got into web development because of Flash.
Having worked for companies such as Atari and then a smattering of CD-ROM game companies in the early/mid 90's Flash allowed me to produce my work and even develop games without having to worry about physical distribution channels and allowed for all the interactivity I required.
So for alll you who think flash is only used for annoying ads, well, why don't you switch to text based browsers instead? Because ads are still made as
Kind of like how Imaging killed Photoshop? Or how Frontpage killed Dreamweaver? This might take away some of the low end Swish market but I doubt any real Flash developers will switch to it. Why go to the pain and frustration of using an MS product when you don't have too (yes I use XP and Office, but it doesn't mean I like them).
Oh please please PLEEEEAAASE let something kill Flash. I would be ecstatic if all these idiotic corporate splash pages were done in a format that MS will never ever port to Linux.
Saying it's the end of Macromedia is pretty dumb, though; Dreamweaver has withstood the suckitude of all its sibling products (think Fireworks), I'm sure it can live through Flash's death also.
All's true that is mistrusted
...to label a product that won't be released for THREE YEARS a "[competing product]-killer"?
Plus, now that Microsoft has essentially shown their cards, Macromedia will be motivated to improve Flash in the intervening time so as not to lose customers to Microsoft's product when it finally appears.
~Philly
Isn't the macromedia creation software like, expensive or something?
This doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to be bug-free. Goodness knows it won't be either. All it has to be is free.
Joe College-Student can't just on a whim whip up a flash animation of Pam Anderson bouncing her jubblies. Well he can if he pirates the macromedia creation studio, but it's not the same as if it's just there in your browser for free.
Microsoft abusing its monopoly on operating systems in order to conquer another field of software?
Say it ain't so.
This is a good opportunity to watch them do what they love from beginning to end.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Nah, we'll just rename "Sparkle" to "FishBulb" and be done with it. The "bright idea that stinks"! Oh yeah...
But think of the benefits...
Instead of just getting pictures of people smiling, happy because they had bought some viagra, we could get animated personalized sparkley animations in our inbox now complete with time lapsed grown animations over an hour period. IT'LL BE WONDERFUL.
c'mon, can't you share my vision?
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!
pooptruck
j00 R 0wN3d !!!
thanks for bitch-slapping me the other day, taco
The usual microsoft combo.
'Nuff said.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
Why do people think that just because M$ enters a new market all existing companies in that market are doomed?
Anyways, who the hell would name their product sparkle??
The problem is that people might bail out of Flash on just the press release alone. Some years back, AMD came out with a very good competitor to Intel. It failed not because nobody wanted it, but because Intel made an add campaign saying, "Wait until you see what we're about to do" or something to that effect. People held off on AMD. This is serious. Bye-bye Flash.
The constant stream of "will this kill ...." everytime MS releases a new product/service/annoyance should wake people up to the dangers of a single homogenous platform for virtually all computers. Of course viruses didn't.
;)
I am shocked that all of these companies (Macromedia, Adobe, Symantec, etc..) aren't trying to expand to other platforms rather than being content to be sharecroppers on microsoft's platform. The day comes for every minor (and some not so minor) developer on the MS platform where MS replaces thier product and kills them (regardless of quality). If they all invested in other platforms those platforms would become more popular (due to support) and then they would have a viable alternative to praying MS doesn't bundle a {virus scanner, firewall, flash player...} in the next Windows release.
When we people relize its a chicken/egg problem and if they start laying the eggs eventually you'll get some chickens?
Look at this link
C _a s_a_Microsoftie
n efd_lede. In that article they have a graphic that only 26% of all computers have upgraded to Windows XP at end of 2002.
http://www.sellsbrothers.com/spout/#My_First_PD
The quote is, "Avalon not available on existing versions of Windows: not so good"
ROTFL... Cross reference that with the article http://news.com.com/2009-1016_3-5103226.html?tag=
So lets put all of this together... In theory when Longhorn comes out overall maybe a year down the road 33% of the computers will be upgraded. The rest will stay. Hmmm, who says that Linux on the desktop will not happen. In fact I wonder if Longhorn will not be that last final push that puts Linux on the desktop...
It will be interesting to see how this plays out...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Welcome to /dev/psaux!!
I'm guessing it'll be a Flash in the pan...
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
So an as-yet-unseen project that won't be released for years yet is the beginning of the end for Macromedia?
Why is this news? It's little short of MS hyping for there next profit project. What would be news is a fully open alternative to Flash!
this is fantastic
good bye flash, see you in hell
I thought my logo was bad.
So.. talking about a product that could possibly be released with Longhorn IF it debuts in 2006, and talking about it like Macromedia have just been read their last rights.
3 years in the computing industry is an eternity. Thinking back to the year 2000, I was still using Windows 98, and had not long upgraded to a Slot-A Athlon 600MHz or something similar, and had just bought a brand spanking new Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO card.. most of that stuff is now obsolete, ESPECIALLY Windows 98!!
Nothing like jumping the gun a little eh? And as ever with any Microsoft product, I won't hold my breath.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
You can't say "pigfucker" in front of Jesus!
I hope this is the beginning of the end of saying "is this the beginning of the end?"
I had heard somewhere that Macromedia was a division of Microsoft. I could be wrong though.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
The parent should have been modded Insightful.
Seriously, Microsoft rarely has any bright ideas on it's own and spends most of it's time playing catch up to the truly innovated technologies.
Look at any of their projects. The future frontpage will just be adding features that dreamweaver came in with 2 years ago. Windows has finally reached a stability that Linux/Unix/Mac has been boasting for a very long time. I seriously doubt microsoft will come in with anything in the next 2 years near the quality of Flash MX now.
As a distribution and marketing company, MS is king, as a technical leader, MS is a bad joke.
Star Pirates
Point your browser to http://www.creaturehouse.com and read the fine print.
I _really_ hope this doesn't mean that Expression will die a second death...
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Why do people complain about it being an annoyance? Because it's a goddamn annoyance, that's why.
That's great you use it for real applications. Huh-frickin-zah. 99.999% of the rest of the web developers use it like shitty perfume or gasoline explosions in an action flick - too much and too often. They give Flash and people like you a bad rap.
You can't trick me!! You deleted the paragraph about the turkey baster!
Sounds like the "top men" in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Dick tracy has prior art... umm... or something.
Sparkle Plenty
Born
1947, daughter of B.O. Plenty and Gravel Gertie. Marries Junior Tracy
1981. The Sparkle Plenty doll is one of the most popular dolls in the
history of licensed cartoon products, and the most popular of all Dick
Tracy merchandise.
I don't freakin' trust 'em at all!
While everyone ponders the possible impact of Longhorn on Flash, and the possibilities for making Internet applications "richer", there's an XML-based platform that is already released -- not only that, but it's shipping today and has been deployed by Yahoo, Earhlink and Behr.com. The platform is from Laszlo (disclaimer: I work there). It provides the following: * declarative XML approach to app development, a la XAML or XUL * cutting edge UI, delivered into the Flash runtime (but no Flash tools or APIs used for development) * Free development server for Linux, OS X, Windows or anything else that supports the JRE * integrates with XML web services * delivers apps into any web browser that supports the Flash plug-in, version 5 or later Pls forgive the marketing pitch, but I think this is on-topic. Check it out: http://www.laszlosystems.com
I have hated macromedia flash since I first saw it. Its worse than poorly done powerpoint. good riddance!
Macromedia makes some decent tools, but....
... bleh!
Can someone here point us towards a site currently using Flash where the end result is dazzingly worthwhile? Flash programmers are finally getting to the point of occassionally delivering a stylish advertising graphic - but I usually set my system not to show me those, because it's extremely rare that the content I'm after uses Flash at all.
Could it be that
- the functional concept of Flash is a bad one, so it doesn't matter if MS introduces something else with as little real worth as Flash?
Or
- the concept is right, and the lack of results is because Flash doesn't implement it well enough, so there's actually room for someone else (even MS) to produce a truly useful tool in this space?
Or
- we'd all be in a Flash Web now, except we're held back by those Luddites in cyberspace who still miss the original default gray NCSA page background?
But really, a demonstration of Flash being useful - I still haven't seen it. It's concept is promising enough, but the results
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
A lot of the goals Microsoft is aiming at with "Sparkle" are the same as those Flash is looking to accomplish, one source said. But the tool goes beyond Flash in delivering a .NET application that has access to all the APIs (define) in Longhorn, and effectively takes animation beyond the browser to enable, say, three videos running at the same time as other graphics and animation.
Ah, yes, because giving access to the user's system to outsiders has worked so well with ActiveX, IE, and pretty much every other product Microsoft has put out.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Microsoft doesn't want to have to bug users every time a site with a plug-in (e.g. FLASH) comes up. So they've built this in to IE to circumvent the Eolas patent case ruling.
Flash is probably the most used plug in out there. So why is this at all a surprise? Not only does Microsoft gain more ground, but they also get to skimp around the ruling.
Where's my tinfoil hat?
...about Penny Arcade.
SunSaw, are you wearing a Federation uniform?
"Infants flesh will be in season throughout the year." -Swift
In fact the last major Microsoft bug that I have encountered was with the Outlook 2003 Beta where Outlook would crash whenever I had more than 100 messages to download. But that was fixed, with a patch, and was not present in the full product.
There have been some security issues with RPC and messenger, but overall, I consider 2000, XP, and 2003 are fantastic operating systems that are becoming nearly as stable as their Linux competation.
It's called desparation. I'm sure M$ will buy out Playboy if it sees the beginning of the end.
and look how that ended up.
XAML is Microsoft's new do-it-all markup language that includes vector graphics and animation a la SVG (they even call the graphics subset "WVG"). You can read all about it in the Longhorn alpha developer docs. I suspect Sparkle is just the authoring toolset for the graphics.
What's interesting is that XAML also includes markup for user interface elements (similar in intent to XUL), and general documents (similar to HTML). It also has a feature set called "fixed format" documents which seems clearly designed to supplant PDF.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Microsoft ultimately plans to bury the W3C and make Web formats their proprietary property. They may as well just call it Bluebird 2006.
Damn, I'm selling my Macromedia stock right now!
You laugh, but if I had any Macromedia stock it would be sold before Microsoft released the beta. Macromedia's only real hope is that the courts agree that bundling this with Windows is a violation of the anti-trust settlement.
PS, if you get your stock tips from Slashdot, you're dumber than I look.
bance.net
conversely, Macromedia Flash (the program, not the medium) really does suck. their QA is virtually non-existant or otherwise incompetent. major bugs have persisted since version 3 all the way through version 7 (MX 2004). "features" (like half-pixel placement of objects, which invariably leads to distortion) can't be disabled and if they can, you can't do it without killing off other necesary features.
that being said, could Microsoft really do better? a company that has never, ever made a product that creative pros take seriously? Even Adobe failed to make a motion graphics applicastion that stuck. Plus you have teh market penetration thing. while Flash was a "rich media" plug in when it started, now it's virtually universal, meaning teh MS platform would have to be as well right off the bat to compete. then they would have to get people who have mastered Flash, it's programming language, and all it's idiosyncracies (no small feat) to pick up a MS product instead. bear in mind that half of Flash pros are ActionScript programmers. and how many computer-savvy people do you know who get psyched to switch to a MS product? unless it's perfect, uses SWF and ActionScript, has 80% or better market penetration, and costs $50, I can't imagine who would use it.
it's so long till it's going to be ready ms is basically saying it will have everything anyone ever might ask them it to have.. every little r&d project with no other purpose is 'going to be in it' too.
suppose some linux companies would start pushing in their marketing some functions that would appear in 2006? would anyone but laugh at them?
it's not like ms hasn't backed out of it's feature "promises" before.
-
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I noticed this page in the longhorn sdk api
It looked like a flash replacement and I guess I was right.
My understanding of it is that Sparkle is just a development tool, to build winFX applications. The "flash-killer" is winFX, not sparkle. I've heard winFX called many things. Supposedly its going to kill flash, pdf, html, win32 and a couple of other things I've forgot.
Its not out to kill anything. Its just updating the current outdated win32 interface to last the next 10 or 20 years. Of course, from what I have seen, it does seem possible that it will make several of those technologies seem out of date. They just have to keep up.
If Macromedia would produce LINUX software - I can guarantee that there wouldn't be any competition - Linux would be the primary desktop and Macromedia would stay on top ;)
Just my 2 pennies
Mod +1 Insightful
They will port it to OS X just like Office, Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer... and leave linux / freeBSD / other Open Source OS's aside as usual.
Then eventually they will cut support to Mac or make it substandard compared to the Windows version.
Business as usual.
And worse of it all - most people will probably swallow this as well. So sad people don't stand for anything anymore.
I'm as annoyed by annoying Flash stuff as the next guy, but think for a minute what this means to the non-geek world -- yeah, you know, the people who we keep saying we want to see using Linux on the desktop.
There's lots of Flash, and Linux runs it flawlessly. What happens if Sparkle starts to displace Flash as the weapon-of-choice for webmasters who think they can't get it all done with ordinary HTML? There are sites out there that require Flash. Yes, it's annoying, and yes, we'd prefer to see it done right. But will that ever-popular dude, Joe Sixpack, care? All he'll know is that his favorite website requires Sparkle, and there's no Sparkle for Linux or Mac, so he'll stick with Windows.
Flash may be used in annoying ways but its availability on Linux is one of Linux's strengths as a desktop operating system.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Some years back?
Don't you mean P4EE?
or was that Prescott?
or was that multi-core ItaniumX?
But by all means, DON'T go out and buy any sort of Athlon64 product.
(I know the P4EE is available now, but one could consider the announcement timing suspicious.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Um.....2007? In 2007 I'm going to be flying in my hovercar and lasers will be beaming music directly into my brain! Who cares that there's going to be a 'Flashkiller' in 2007? Flash will already be dead!
.NET is stuck on Windows until they write virtual machines for other OSes. So let's take it for a given that this is Windows Only. And if they did have a plugin for other OSes, it would probably be bigger than the Java JRE to handle all the .NET framework calls.
.NET that allows people to develop templated vector graphics for applications. More versatile application design, allowing much more interesting transitions and effects. Doom III supposedly has a similar vector-based in-game menu system working. Great idea, possibly the future of all OS. But it'll need some heavy graphics acceleration.
Sparkle seems like it will go the way of MS Bob, but there are a couple possible outcomes:
MS tries to become a 'flashkiller' and mimic Macromedia(who will now be using flash to deliver DVD quality video over the web), but this will never be feasible because of the lack of cross platform support. MS's
2: MS uses this as a gui API for
Flash does pretty much everything you need to from an application perspective now, except work on a per-pixel basis. This is the only economically viable market for Microsoft to dominate, as cartoon animation isn't big enough for MS to take on. The only real feature that Microsoft can provide is locking developers into it's platform....in 2007.
1. Push .Net assemblies, pop ActiveX controls.
2. Lose lawsuit to Eolas, further ensuring the death of ActiveX in the web browser.
3. Create Avalon, a 3d-accelerated GUI for Longhorn that supports complex animations that can run in either Windows apps or web pages via IE.
4. Develop Fizzle(R), Shizzle(R), Sparkle(R), or some other buzzword-sounding product that's so easy to use even Joe Sixpack can write animation for his web site, locking him in to Microsoft products.
5. Profit. Big time.
How can it be the "beginning of the end" for a company that has yet to acquire
a useful purpose for existing or produce a product worth downloading for free?
Would that be anything like IBM's support of Linux being the beginning of the
end for SCO? Macromedia has, what, six programs out now? All cut from
approximately the same cloth, and none of which anyone with taste would ever
consider using. So if Microsoft clones off one of them, even if they *improve*
on it (which is no guaranteed thing), how *exactly* would that matter?
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Then Linux had better hope that he and Linux look more like a concrete barrier, because they/we are right in the middle of, "The Road Ahead."
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Using "M$" in the submission, that's a new low. I guess I can now submit a story about "inux" and it will get accepted. Maybe even taken seriously. This is great!
Macromedia is responsible for the Macrovision, a pernicious technology of the 80's which not only cost the whole old video market (and the more recent dvd one) a whole lot of money but which has killed much user comodities. Just for this; Macromedia deserves to be extinct. They prone the killing of user commodities for the sake of corporative interests with very low efficiency. Screw them, let them die!
I say this because I remember been asked to help a group of students in the start of the 90's. In a student project where they wanted just to add a 5 seconds scene from a movie to the climax of their "montage". I couldn't help at the time because the scene was at the peek of the Macrovision effect. It was too late to find another appropriate scene, the poor guy never heard of copy protection before and he was up all night to find that one scene.
This evil technology prevented young students from expressing themselves and just because of it I say DRM in any form sucks so much it's dangerous.
Maybe now is the time to bring out some serious open/free MPEG4 tools in an attempt to kill off all these non-standard formats? If it's time for a change, why not provide an alternative?
Wasn't Liquid Motion supposed to Kill Macromedia too. Nobody uses Microsofts Liquid Motion now because nobody needed it when they already had cross platform tools like flash.
Anyone including Macromedia...
So it will directly be possible to export Flash animations as "sparkles".
Trolling using another account since 2005.
If you've only seen cutsie animations done in Flash, you haven't seen much. The potential for Flash to be a user-interface language is substantial, and quite a few companies are doing fairly complex data-handling things with it.
Most of that is likely hidden in Web-based applications, used inside companies and school systems, though, not something most people would ever encounter while doinking around on the Web.
Come on, the same tired, old, discredited argument? When will you give it up?
...Flash's yet-to-be-released competition from M$ is code named "Sparkle" but it wasn't demonstrated ..
-1 Flamebait
Should we start calling Linux "Loonix" ?
Why? Did you trash your Macromedia Dreamweaver when you first read the press release on FrontPage? The problem is that Sparkle will have vastly different goals than Flash just like FrontPage had vastly different goals than Dreamweaver.
Sucks to sit there and have to read through all this crap just to belittle the readers, but hey, money is money.
Poor SAP!!!
There is an implicit assumption that any market Microsoft enters, they're going to WIN, and destroy ALL competitors. It may well take until the third of fourth version, but once Microsoft enters your market, you may as well roll over and die, if you weren't lucky enough to get bought out by Microsoft.
This doesn't always happen, but it hasn't done much to damage the teflon impression of invincible Microsoft. Perhaps the most significant damage to that teflon has been done by Linux in the server space. But the desktop is Microsoft's Bastion!
Of course this is all perception, and has nothing to do with reality.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I cannot see in any way how all the new 'integration' is even close to fair to competitors! There now building everything inside the OS, so basically your being forced to use there stuff no matter what. Macromedia should sue the pants off MS as soon as it can aquire enough information of new Anti-Trust movements which are directed at the market place and their own companies software Flash.
No, this is
I will agree that a lot of crappy stuff has been done in Flash. There's also a lot of crappy books/webpages/slashdot posts that have been written, but I'm not about to propose getting rid of the alphabet so that it doesn't happen again.
There are some things for which the interactive, vector-based, flash delivered materials are best. Something like technial illustrations on a website would be a perfect example, ones that can be cross linked and are zoomable. (if you did it in static files, you'd need to render a bunch of different resolutions. if you did it as PDF, you don't get the same interactivity)
And whether you like it or not, a LOT of people learn better by smaller, bite sized bits of information, rather than by large text blocks that they need to plow through.
There is also this idea that presentation is totally useless. For many things it isn't the foremost important thing, but if you totally dislike having content delivered to you with somebody else's presentation applied, you'd better:
I don't care if it is flash or svg or whatever. The reason it popped up is because there are people who legitimately can use this technology. If you aren't one of them, fine. But don't assume that because you don't find it useful, then nobody should.
*groan*
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
I've been using Flash as a more general-purpose multimedia authoring app for mostly offline stuff for over two years now. Even if you take Macromedia's Flash market share on the Web down to 0, it'll still be a pretty powerful sub-$500 Windows/Mac multimedia publishing program, which might not be a bad fallback niche even under a worst case scenario.
Incorporate SVG into the Mozilla trunk and add SMIL with support for mp3 and/or ogg vorbis. That'll be a real Flash killer.
1. Kick out MM and sell the editor as a part of MSDN (2k$ a year~ per station)
2. 'Lose' the plug-in trial and no more flash or applets in IE. (Lose == no settlement expenses)
Am i wrong?
Um, MS has quietly made an acquisition of company Creature House that produces an amazing raster and vector drawing program, namely Expression 3. Check out the discrete notices at the bottom of both pages.
The product is^H^Hwas available for Wind and MacOSX. Now they will just put a new sticker to the Wind version, kill the MacOSX version (unles the MBU somehow salvages it, unlikely as it will definitely be touted as a revolutionary 'new' thingie) and re-implement some core features in .NET so it crashes like hell.
Never ceasing to amaze, can't they just implement anything themselves?!?! For God's sake!!!
I still have my copy of the only released version of Liquid Motion; it still is on a couple of sites I did, in it's Java-only version.
Was pretty cool; I was looking for something like Jamba without the hefty price tag, and it seemed to fit the bill.
BUT, it was weird, didn't have half the features, and didn't have the really, really cool installation song Jamba had.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Back when IE4 was coming out, it promised alot of vector stuff, animations, etc., stuff that NOBODY used (not even Microsoft!).
Sadly, selling your Macromedia stock right now might not be bad idea.
I think the precedent for this is IE. Look at the zeitgeist to see how many browsers use google: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
Were the first few versions of IE better than Navigator? I don't remember it that way.
Sure, Navigator got bloaty and buggy as time went on, but that was only part of the reason that IE dominates. I think a bigger contributor to Navigator's loss was that IE came free, and was 'bundled' with the OS. That's what's going to happen to sparkle. Everyone who pays the M$ tax will get it 'for free', it won't be 'uninstallable' and of course front page will use it and tons more web sites will work with only IE.
Will Macromedia open-source flash? Or, will they decide to try and support whatever obfuscated and hidden API m$ will come up with?
How come only Microsoft can be violating anti-trust when adding additional functionality to an OS?
MS has every right to produce any software which adds value to the OS.
MS is bigger but that is not a crime.
Macromedia sues Microsoft on pantent infringement.
Microsoft buys Macromedia
Flash development for Linux ends.
This will most likely be some watered down base-user app that creates animations via wizards and robots. Yippee, Gramma will finally be able to create her very own annoying Flash intro page. I doubt this is anything that a professional would use.
Did .wma kill .mp3?
.)
.png hasn't made significant advances against .gif. Why would the animated equivalents disappear?
Did Windows kill Macs?
Did IE kill Netscape? (Well, maybe . .
Will Sparkle kill Flash? Of course not.
Didn't we have this whole antitrust case to stop them from doing things like this to Macromedia as they did in the past to Netscape. I hope the supposed antitrust monitors are watching this and realizing that Microsoft is up to the same shit again.
Or is this Microsoft's way of getting around the plugin patent case they just lost? You don't need plugins if every plugin is already embeded.
that Microsoft would use the same name as a window cleaner . I hope the people who make that product sue the pants off 'em.
Once again, MS is trying to push aside real industry standards by creating their own proprietary ones.
There is *already* a W3C replacement for the proprietary Flash format: Javascript + DOM + SVG
The Mozilla and KHTML developers and others would be wise to put heavy emphasis on getting SVG support fully working ASAP.
See, what you do is:
- install mozilla firebird (pretty much mandatory given that it's neck and shoulders above other browsers)
- install flash-click-to-view
From then on all flash objects will be replaced by a huge button that says "flash: click to view". And guess what, you click that button to view the flash animation!
The only problem is that some sites use idiotic flash detection scripts that break down because this doesn't even load the flash files from the network if you don't click the box.
The Mr. Sparkle name likely came from an MS product manager who is playing with a Sparklez from Think Geek ... wind-up cubicle toy he was watching as it wobbled erratically around his desk as small sparks are produced as the wheel rotates.
He thought this is a perfect name for our next great product.
Let the battle begin !
BR> Tacoguy
Since nearly everyone who uses the internet uses Google, I check the Zeitgeist every month to see what the latest stats are. As you can see, Windows 98 is down to only 29%. XP is at 38%, and 2000 is at 20%, combined, NT kernel based OSes comprise approx. 69% of the browsers who visit Google.
Minus User-Agent spoofers thouhg, but really thats a statstically insignificant number of people.
So, would the animation part of Sparkle be called Sparkle Motion?
To Microsoft:
Please please please please please make IE W3C compliant fixing all the CSS etc bugs and including SVG support. You can not imagine how cool it would be for webdesigners around the world to be able to design things properly and my faith in you would be.. erm created.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Ummmm ... you're assuming "quality" has something to do with it. MS has repeatedly proven that quality is irrelevant, it's all about the install base. MS has the install base covered. Macromedia is about to join the long list of distinguished products that Microsoft decides it wanted to decimate, namely Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, AOL AIM, Netscape, Real, and now Flash. Long story short, don't play nice with Microsoft because they have no LONG TERM intention of playing nice with you.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
from the one-tech-i'd-love-to-see-die dept
Yeah, a technology that's cross-platform, supports the creation of data-driven GUI apps deployed over the web, is viewable by 90% of the internet user-base, is supported by industry giants like IBM, Sun, BEA, Oracle...yeah, let's hope it dies.
I don't get it.
Karma: Non-existant. Due mostly to the fact that you smell funny and nobody likes you.
It's absolute nonsense to already draw conclusion of how this will impact Macromedia and Flash. After all this technology is 3 years away. What I also don't understand is who cares? I mean really - it will be no less the scenario than we have today - Microsoft will present a way to make super-great websites while still compatible with HTML. That itself is far from what Macromedia is providing and it's not in the slightest form a contender. Or let me put things a bit in perspective: are you using Macromedia as a front-end for your CRM? I didn't think so! Everyone who does deserves to be shot on the spot - but that of course is just my oppinion.
I seem to remember a big hoo-ha about SVG being the open standard that would kill Macromedia. Since Flash has been extended to do much more than just animations and banner ads, that idea has gone by the wayside. This is no different. Once again M$ are at the cow's tail of the internet.
Moreover, the culture at M$ is just not conducive to making any headway in this market. I was at Macromedia's HQ in San Francisco the other night at a user group meeting, and the guy that was giving the presentation of Flash Professional 2004 summed it up beautifully. He said that the really cool things happen when artists and engineers collaborate properly. And that is what happens at Macromedia. "When was the last time anybody seriously used a Micro$oft image editing tool?" He asked. Everyone laughed, because M$ are crap at that sort of thing, although their technical stuff at the back end is supposedly okay (although I would dispute that.)
Go to Adobe and you'll find great tools for the artist, but when it comes to technical stuff for the web then they're a bit challenged.
Macromedia is a unique company that is full of renaissance people, people who are left brained and right brained. It has a good mix of engineers and artists, and that explains why their products are both slick and easy to use as well as being technical masterpieces.
Personally, whilst I have my doubts about the future uptake of certain products like Central, I think it's safe to say that with excellent products like Flash, DreamWeaver, Fireworks and Contribute, Macromedia are going to be around for quite some time to come.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Hasn't a Japanese company got a trademark on this name?
Jonathanjk.com
Also note that the NT kernel is 14 years old! Development was started in 1989. I hope it has most of its bugs fixed by now..
cpeterso
...this was going to be a story about the Flash killer plugin for Mozilla Firebird?!
So again Microsoft is going to use it's own form to kill another established format (Flash) and not even consider a standard format (SVG).
#include <sig.h>
Yeah, and with longhorn Microsoft will release a new version of MSPaint that will take away allmost all of Adobes market share.
Graphic designers around the world will switch in mass. Still does not support Layers, but new light flares and cloud filter added.
Look out Adobe.
TruePunk | Games
Hopefully this will finally make Macromedia get a clue and port their products to Linux. The only way they can beat MS is to help out the up and coming system. It would be great to get director and flash MX for Linux.
-TN
When computer industry will realise that microsoft does not have partners, only usefull pieces.
They will launch a terrible software tight to windows API, they will put in it 5 or 6 features and tell everybody that this features is more important than all other features in competitor product. They will integrate this on all versions of windows, Give a development tool for free and convince all other software makers to support the new software. 3 years past the competitor will be dead. Microsoft will stop to concern about this software and will aim theirs cannons to another one.
Microsoft has a long and storied history of promising the Next Big Thing(TM) in graphics, and then not delivering a damn thing.
;) )
Do some googling for Microsoft Farenheit and Microsoft Chrome
Then search microsoft.com for the same thing - NADA. (And before you freak out that these are code names, try searching for Yukon while you're there
-Sheildwolf
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Before the Apple revisionists (yes, you) decide that Apple came up with this on their own - the same way Apple didn't invent the modern GUI (that was Xerox) - you should read this:
Display Postscript.
Display postscript has been around since 1987. Apple's Quartz is a *subset* of this (as the article mentions, probably because Apple didn't want to pay licencing fees to Adobe).
Seriously, I think there should be a lameness filter set up that automatically strips the final sentence in the news posts. It's almost always a trollish, sarcastic throwaway bit meant to piss people off (and working up Linux/Slashdot zealots is like shooting fish in a barrel.)
How long before M$ breaks Macromedia Flash?
"I'm sorry, the plug-in you tried to install is not compatible with this operating system's beleif that all programs must be made by Microsoft. Please try Sparkle instead."
On a serios note, how is this not anti-competitive? I guess Macromedia can look for a nice payout once this has been implemented.
It's time to OPEN-SOURCE and do something else, is what time it is. Remember the Netscape, Davey Crockett, and Sister Christian.
next-->display postscript... upon which quartz is based.
Let me ask you this: does that mean any new feature added in Windows is now an anti-trust violation? Doesn't that seem a little harsh?
Or perhaps you are just objecting to the fact that Macromedia already has similar capabilities. The problem is, just about any feature you add to an OS today has been done by someone before. Does that mean that the OS must be stagnant?
It's not as though Macromedia has the patent on vector-based graphics...
Sing with me now....
It's the end of Flash as we know it...
It's the end of CD's as we know it...
It's the end of Radhat as we know it...
It's the end of CowboyNeal as we know it...
and I feel fine.
Strangly even with all the "End of"'s on slash lately, I do feel fine....
"Failure is not an option, it's part of the standard package"
That's really what Flash MX, as distinct from previous versions, is trying to do -- essentially replace the somewhat shaky idea of browser-side Java applications. And while this kind of use for Flash is very rare right now, it does it extremely well--it's a far more lightweight system than Java, and sometimes that has its advantages. And Flash MX has a pretty complete set of methods for both full-featured GUIs and data access/manipulation.
Flash gets a bad rap because it was abused a great deal for its first couple of years. So was client-side Java, though. Macromedia, to their credit, has worked pretty hard at giving Flash the capability to be fast and unobtrusive, even to the point of having good accessibility options and automatically creating non-Flash alternatives. And while Flash is certainly still used predominantly for fluffery, a lot of it I don't even notice as Flash but for the faster, smoother animated interaction with the site when I'm using a Flash-enabled browser.
I'm not a Flash developer and doubt I'm really going to put the effort into it on my own--but it's not the Great Force for Evil that people make it out to be.
knowing microsoft, this will be the equivalent to mspaint going up against photoshop
The end of flash was due to the overwhelmingly amazing adoption of SVG. Everybody knows that open standards are better than proprietary ones, right guys? Sarcasm aside, anybody will have a hard time entering this market. SVG is enabled on something like 70% of internet clients, but less than 1/1000 of the interactive content is SVG based. Flash is good for what it does. It is mature and stable and powerful.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Windows: XP
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Even thought they put it a lot of effort to shoot themselves in the foot last year, they've still survived a MS onslaught.
I can't believe that we haven't had the obligatory "I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion" post.
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
Ahh. This explains the BSODs. They use second grade developers for the kernel and such.
Swish is a program that I find easier to use than Flash. Give it a look.
Oh, it is also a helluva cheaper product too.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
Dialog 2: "In order to view this site correctly, you must upgrade your Flash viewer to Microsoft's Sparkle."
Dialog 3: "In order to view this site correctly, you must upgrade your operating system to Microsoft Windows XP 2005."
Dialog 4: "In order to view this site correctly, you must upgrade your computer to Microsoft's Freedom PC."
Etc., etc., etc...
Just great.
"Consider the lillies of the goddamn field."
MS has tried several times to add graphical
effects and yes, even vector graphics capabilities
to IE and they have failed every time.
There are many reasons for this, but first and
foremost is that simple, independent applications
are not Microsoft's bag.
The internal political pressure to provide hooks within Sparkle for Access,
Word, Windows Media Player, CSS, VB-Script, etc. will result in a cumbersome vector graphics engine. What will MS
say when developers complain about their painfully
sluggish code?
They'll say the usual. Don't blame us... Your machine just isn't fast enough.
And by the way Adobe also has a 3rd generation vector graphics engine and
they've got the entire
design world listening to them. If they can't
get theirs to catch on, my guess is MS adds this
to their long list of quickly forgotten failures.
Yours truly,
Microsoft Bob.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Idiotic bullshit as usual. Glad to see you guys are still on top of things.
Make it part of the OS, lockout Macromedia as a security threat. Slam dunk!
(This sig has been removed at the request of the patent holder for Sigs.)
to release a new version?
Don't go calling the kettle black.
This is another one of my long winded theoretical pieces so grab some popcorn and beer and sttle down for a read;)
Firstly, the question must be asked of many things that MS is planning on including in Longhorn: Why are they doing this? Why are they adding in a Flash killing, Windows only Technology, and why are they adding an Office/Mail "security" feature that only works on Windows? The answer should be as obvious as the sky is blue: They want to kill off the competition. This should really, after all these years of bone crushing MS failures and successes in killing off alternatives, be blindingly obvious.
The next question is whether it will succede. That is anyone's guess. I tend to look at the last few times MS has attempted to intoduce MS only technologies in the browser, such as VBScript (instead of the ECMAScript compatible JScript), ActiveX (which only ended up with providing plug-in developers extra work into porting to Mac and Mozilla) and others. There is a very good chance that Sparkle will just fall flat on it's face as the millions of Flash developers will not suddenly switch over to something that will only work in one browser, especially after those same developers spent fucking years getting all their html stuff to work in all browsers.
On the other hand, Macromedia has a historical record of making catastrophically bad user interfaces for their products and has a knack of having good luck shots along with a host of bad decisions. They neglected Freehand for ages, for instance, only to have to rush like mad in a catch up game with Illustrator a couple of years down the road. Their latest product activation spree has irritated more than one developer.
There is a final line to this: With both Adobe and Macromedia kissing Microsoft's backside and concentrating most of their efforts on Windows at the expense of the Macintosh, they might have done something that they will highly regret in the future when Microsoft tries to kill both of them off. They might then realise that never ending price rises and neglecting their original markets was a costly mistake.
The W3C today scrapped HTML in view of the burgeoning number of badly-written and ugly websites that are written using that standard.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Anthing that kills Flash popups shall be my idol... Wait... it's from Micro...wah? Nevermind. Move along.
"That's really what Flash MX, as distinct from previous versions, is trying to do -- essentially replace the somewhat shaky idea of browser-side Java applications. And while this kind of use for Flash is very rare right now, it does it extremely well--it's a far more lightweight system than Java, and sometimes that has its advantages. And Flash MX has a pretty complete set of methods for both full-featured GUIs and data access/manipulation."
Well Java Applets and Flash existed because developers wanted WYSIWYG on the client side, as well as to overcome technical limitations. However the Internet of yore is past, and the web has grown up. We have more robust server-side technologies (Web Application Frameworks, and CMS), and the browser has matured as well, XUL, SVG, SMIL, etc with SOAP to tie it together. The question is were does Macromedia fit into all of this? I hear that Macromedia is trying to get away from it's "web" image, and to be considered more for application-front ends. Maybe they sense something we don't?
You're out of your element.
Nothing drives me crazier than the ill-informed Flash-bashers who think that it can do nothing but animation. Maybe they'd prefer huge gif animations instead. Or maybe they prefer the funtionality of HTML that insists that you re-load an entire page just to see one little piece of data that's different from the previous page. Or maybe they prefer Real Player embedded in their page when they want to watch video. Or maybe.....
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?
I'm sick of people freaking out whenever Microsoft announces something. These are only ANNOUNCEMENTS - who knows whether there's anything behind them, what they'll eventually release, how good it will be, etc.
Longhorn is years away, and yet every little piece of magic it will supposedly contain is breathlessly reported. How fortunate they are that all they have to do is say "We're going to do these magnificent things", and so many people jump right on it and assume it's true? As far as I can tell, whatever else happens in a couple of years Microsoft will still be the big boy on the block, will still release shitty, buggy software, will still be playing catch up to Apple on features, and will still be telling everyone how much better their lives will be when they buy yet another Microsoft upgrade.
So settle down people.
Facts are stubborn things.
...and that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Flash is a terrible authoring environment and needs a little competition.
Free tip to Macromedia: a timeline is not even near an ideal environment for developing interactive media!
More important than if this will kill Flash is why didn't MS use the W3C SVG standard for this?
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/
Web standards provide a clear path forward for web development (an similar non-web), too bad MS seems to think it's proprietary technologies are more appropriate for some reason.
I think a bigger contributor to Navigator's loss was that IE came free, and was 'bundled' with the OS.
I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who ever had to pay for a copy of Netscape Navigator, and IE 4 wasn't bundled with Windows 95 (I remember that I had to download it). In my experience, IE 4 was easier to use and less buggy than Netscape 4 (or whatever version was out at that time).
I made the switch to IE not because it was free (because Netscape was also free), and not because it was bundled with Windows (because at the time, it wasn't).
I switched from Netscape to IE solely because I, the user, thought it was better.
And I was right.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
"The community really needs free, powerful, robust SVG renderers and authoring tools using public standards to become popular, or else Microsoft will own yet another "standard"."
Well either pull a "Blender" and purchase this product from the company. Or merge the code that Real Networks released and SodiPodi (It still has a ways to go, feature and stability).
I suppose they named it Sparkle because they think it's going to give the top brass at Microsoft a real shine.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
First off MS has been making Frontpage which "trys" to compete with Dreamweaver and has failed misserably. (Yeah I know some people prefer it, but they also are the same people who prefer html code geared towards IE on a PC and fail to check with any other platform/browser to see if it's even readable)
Second Flash has a competitor called Swish (forgot who makes it) and from people i've talked to it works pretty well - Flahs integrates with the other Macromedia software better (obviously) but if you just need to do some cool animation and don't want to shell out a bunch of cash for Flash then it's the way to go.
Third Director is ok, but not somethgn i'd use on a daily basis.
Finally since MS makes a shity competitor to Dreamweaver and the fact that another company already competes in the Flash dept. i'm willing to bet MS's new software will be "interesting" but not be a product that will compete with Macromedia on a professional level.
It's like comparing MS Publisher to Quark/InDesign...mmmK
Ave Molech Setting
Apparently you don't need proprietary tools and formats and it is part of the W3C consortium standards..
They even have standards and versions for PDA's and cellphones...
No, and Adobe isn't the only ones that have roll-ed this format into their products...
What a fantastic innovation!...
Now programs will keep all their important information in a new file type called an 'Ini' file. This file will be easily modified with most text editors and will get rid of the single failure point of the windows registry.
(snicker)
-Z
Microsoft taking over the graphics shops?
Sure... that's why I do all my DTP work under MS Publisher and set all type in TrueType, etc.
...to create a flash-like environment for creating windows applications that run over the internet. flash is cool, but it usually runs in a browser window, or in a flash player window. if they have a vector environment that's web-connected, developers can keep applications on their own servers and sell subscriptions to their software.
Hand-coded interactivity will require more effort, but won't alienate your audience. Especially with the number of ads now which include sounds.
Flash is going from my default browser. I'll miss a couple of fun games, but I won't shed a tear for the developers whose digital masturbation I'm ignoring...
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Well I'll be damned. Martin Watts reads Slashdot. Love the stories man. Keep up the good work.
Flash's yet-to-be-released competition from M$ is code named "Sparkle" but it wasn't demonstrated during Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles last week. Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?"
Microsoft's product has not even been unveiled, much less tested, released, reviewed, patched, etc, etc, etc, and you already ask "is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?" I think that's jumping the gun at best and asinine at worst.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Microsofts approach
1. Wait for something to become popular
2. Produce an alternative
3. Watch it fail
4. Produce alternative v2
5. See it suceed
6. PROFIT!
Can't they let anyone develop a nice bit of software? why do they have to kill off anyone that produces cool stuff for their browser and OS, it's like they're short of ideas or something.
as for an SVG API, all i can say is 'good luck suckers' --SVG was never meant to be a full-fledged animation platform...
bah! i say, let them bring it on, and let it join the pile of skeletons piling up in MS' closet...
Well then go ahead and try to exploit it, if you think this model is insecure. It has already been implemented - any machine that has the .NET Framework installed can run a .NET application embedded in a web page - with no prompts or warnings. The application can "potentially" have access to the entire framework (akin to saying "all the APIs in Longhorn").
.exe on a website - the application will run without problem on .NET computers, without any prompts.
.NET Framework installed that will happily run your code -- until you attempt to do something nasty.
BUT. The key is "Code Access Security" (google it for details). Now the APIs themselves can check who is calling them, and how/if they should execute given the context of the caller.
My quick introduction to code access security:
If I create an application that says "Hello World" when the user clicks a button, and put the
But if I create an application that reads the user's hard drive when the user clicks a button, and put it on a website - the application will run UNTIL the user clicks the button. As soon as the app attempts to call the filesytem, the API's will recognize the caller as an untrusted source and throw a security exception.
That is all they are referring to when saying the Flash like tool will have access to the API's.
If you think that is a security issue, demonstrate the exploit. There are plenty of machines out there already with the
It's not necessarily the fact that they are trying to improve their product that is the problem, the problem is that they are trying to use their monopoly market share to usurp existing industry standards with their own proprietary standards that will only run on their software. If the actual intention of Microsoft was to improve the standard or the market that would be one thing, but the intention is obviously to simply make their products as incompatible as possible with everything else once they have the market lead and use their tremendous market share in other sects of the industry to hold it in place. My complaint isn't that they move other software out, my complaint is that they try to change standards to lock in end users which is a violation of their anti-trust settlements. It's not just something like this, it's things like their MS-Integrated BIOS the list goes on and on.
Don't you people have work to be doing??? ~ When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you.
Here's a good example of a recent flash cartoon - wouldn't want to lock myself out of seeing it completely, even if IANAV...
ha ha, i had the same thought. nobody got rid of adobe pagemaker or quark when publisher came out either. dear [diety], i cant imagine how crappy Sparkle will be, when i remember that frontpage was MS's answer to Dreamweaver.
A minor problem? And if Microsoft bought Macromedia how "minor" do you think your problem would be? And we haven't even gotten to the patent issue. Just because Macromedia allows other people to play with it's toys doesn't mean it's open (free from influence).
I want one, but my boss just doesn't seem happy about the idea. I wonder why?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
to see Flash go! The only people that really use the hell out of it are ads and stupid sites that expect me to wait through a 5 minute intro without a "click to skip intro" button. Lately, and I haven't cared enough to investigate why, if you look at a site with Flash on it and don't have Flash installed, it creates a never-ending "a plug-in on this page did not initialize correctly" dialog box. It's friggin' worse than pop-ups and drives from those sites immediately!
The only site that's mildly amusing and makes use of Flash extensively that I might miss is Strongbad's.
When you think about the amount you use the web, and the things for which you use it, what percentage of that is animated, or could be usefully animated?
For me, 0%. For your average websurfer, I'd say less than 3-4%. If there even is a battle (since this announcement smacks of MS's classic vaporware announcement tactic), it will be a minor skirmish that decides nothing.
What's the next email? What's the next browser? What's the next IM? When I see an announcement of something from MS, or any other company, of a technology with that much potential, I'll pay attention.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
So does this mean it will be an 'integral part of the OS' like they tried to do with IE. I dont install Flash, which makes the amount of ads popping up on web pages drastically reduced.
Really though, this wont be much of a problem. Being the last new version of windows I put on any of the computers I use was Win98. I guess MS is offering up every reason it can to get people to move away form it as quickly as possible.
Reminds me of the girl I dont like calling me 6X a day. Guess MS is insecure in more ways than we thought.
Here it is. Not that I recommend it, I'm fine with Flash, but to say that typing in "flash uninstaller" and hitting the I'm feeling lucky button is non-easy is simply not true.
Put "M$" right in the article submission.
/.
+1, Nice way to attract responses = more ad views = more money for
I agree, you can look at Flash as a very elegant GUI-building environment.
.SWF-files with the open source Ming library (http://ming.sourceforge.net) Complex scripting is possible, and takes a while to learn, but it's still much easier than using Java.
.SWF-files come in a limited number of versions, and it's easy to develop backwards-compatible SWFs. Also, SWFs will work identically on Windows, Linux and Macs.
Sadly it's used for banners a lot, too. Hopefully this will be an incentive to more browser builders to customise Flash-playing in their browsers based on user preferences per domain.
Also, generally, Flash is still regarded by most web developers as (at the most) a nice, gadgetty program that is used to generate animations and small games, and not as a GUI-building environment.
But for web application developers, let's compare Flash with J2RE (runtime environment for Java applets) or DHTML (HTML/Javascript/CSS.)
EASE OF DEVELOPMENT
Java: Very, very steep learning curve, you have to learn a lot about programming and OO before you can do anything useful with it. Which is strange, because what you'll mostly use it for, is so simple and straightforward that it can be done by something simple like HTML, especially when you extend it with a simple but powerful scripting language like PHP.
Flash: Easy to develop for, with Macromedia Flash, or with Adobe Live Motion, or you can even dynamically generate
HTML/Javascript/CSS: Easy to learn the basics, but if you want to do complex layouts with stylesheets, or interaction with Javascript, it can become quite a headache. Nearly as bad as Java.
SIZE OF RUNTIME
Java: Many, many megabytes of code, just for the runtime executable.
Flash: A tiny runtime executable
HTML/Javascript/CSS: No extra downloads or plugins necessary. Available in every major browser
PERFORMANCE
Java: Horrible performance if you work with just the basic graphics classes, and if you want to work with the more sophisticated graphics libraries, the overhead becomes even more dramatic and renders it almost unusable
Flash: The Flash-player is geared toward performance, and you'll notice this when you use complex graphics in a SWF-movie even on a slow system. Also, it has very smart and fine grained controlling of when and how to start playing files even while they're still being downloaded
HTML/Javascript/CSS: Excellent performance, but little or no control over which files to download and execute first
SCRIPTING CAPABILITIES
Java: The possibilities are enormous, only limited to the features of Java 2 and the security limitations imposed on the runtime by the browser
Flash: Excellent scripting facilities by means of Actionscript (an ECMAscript), which has become a very resourceful and mature scripting language with a huge number of functions and full OO capabilities (you can even implement design patterns using it.) It can be used for Flash-movie-manipulation, user interaction and server interaction.
HTML/Javascript/CSS: Quite extensive scripting possible with Javascript being the glue between HTML and CSS. Javascript is also an ECMAscript, but it has more limitations than Actionscript
VERSION SENSITIVITY
Java: Terrible. The client has to have a player that plays your version of Java bytecode or higher, you have to avoid using deprecated methods because the clients runtime may not support them anymore, and Microsoft has to a large extent successfully broken cross-platform compatibility
Flash: Excellent.
HTML/Javascript/CSS: Total Utter Hell. This is the main drawback of designing ANYTHING on the client side with HTML/Javascript/CSS (especially with Javascript.) Basically, a different version of your application has to be developed for every build of version of every browser on every platform. Developmen
Disable flash support in their browser?
They've already annouced that any 'active content' like Java applets (one of their compeditors) and Director/Flash (another compeditor, so it seems) will have to be 'authorised' on a per-object basis.
I would assume that their special sparkle wouldn't need authorisation like the rest of the active content out there.
I think the inconveinece of this is enough, though Macromedia are talking (or have.. I'm not sure) implementing workarounds for this 'IE bug'.
Macromedia are being unfairly battered on /. by people who clearly aren't familiar with the capabilities of Flash.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Always the same scheme:
$Company sells a software primarily for Windows or for the Windows-user marketshare.
$Company has success and it's products are widely adopted.
Microsoft brings "some-new-product-with-X-in-name" that seems to be able to replace the old successful one.
Microsoft uses strong arm tactics, OEM versions, deliberate standard breaking, deliberate "bugs" etc. to dismantle the competition.
New Version of "MS-ProductX" is bundled with the next version of their operating system, incompatible with everything else and it will never be backported.
Sheeple buy new PCs after a while, installbase grows automatically, developers make the shift to the "new" thing and the old one is abandoned.
Old company goes bust or is bought by MS.
Repeat until (SELECT FROM products WHERE developer!="Microsoft")==Null.
Morale of the story:
- Your product is going to be assimilated/killed if it is too popular. Everytime (see Google)
- You can never win against Microsoft on their home (win32) turf.
- They will stab you the first time you turn your back. Guaranteed.
You are soon to be in the same boat as Netscape, Inc.
Resistance is futile!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Stop the Slashdot effect! Don't read the articles!
is bill gates' crack. Don't even try to compare frontpage to dreamweaver. no serious web designer uses frontpage, let alone any microsoft products for desktop publishing or graphics. Microsoft is woefully behing adoe and macromedia on that front. It would take atleast 5-10 yrs before they can build a decent photoshop clone that is stable, reliable and has 1/3 of the features. That is such a pathetic example of microsoft trying to brute force their way into a new market because they know office is rapidly reaching its end as a cash cow. In the next few years, it will dramatically decrease in importance and will not be a significant percentage of MS income.
Here we go again with Microsoft making another monopoly building move to develop a piece of software that isn't needed, and is only designed to kill another vendors market nitch. Even when SVG has been flown through the standards body, instead of using that, they fly in the face of internet standards and create some crap thats only purpose is to build another link in there evil monoplolistic ploys. As for Flash and it's non-open MS-centric approach, all I can say, is live by the sword, die by the sword. (My corilary; Live by Microsoft, Die by Microsoft).
WHO CARES!!!!!! I sure as hell don't. Macromedia is the most worthless shit you'll ever find on a web page.
1.) Adobe's products
2.) Macromedia's products
While NVU (thanks to Lindows) may eventually solve my lack of DreamWeaver on Linux platform (for WYSIWYG web dev), I cannot give up Windows or Mac until Macromedia and (specifically) Adobe ports their products to the Linux platform.
Everyone has different software needs. This is what I need. So, when I hear that Windows is launching "Sparkle" as a Flash-killer, I'm NOT shedding any tears. Macromedia and other software companies need to get themselves into Linux software releases.
Sure, Mono will bring some aspect of "Sparkle" to Linux/UNIX desktops via Mono's .NET usage. It probably won't be as powerful as the Windows version (don't know, tho, so I can't substantiate that); it won't be true open source; and *maybe* there is likely some licensing snag waiting to be used to Microsoft's advantage if Mono gets successful (ie. licensing $$ for M$).
This makes me think about .doc as a word processing standard, instead of .sxw (StarOffice, OpenOffice). ".swf" has a limited life span unless Macromedia starts getting its software ported to Linux -- and pushes hard for greater adoption. Riding the wave of a 95% desktop market share is stupid; they need to get aggressive.
It makes me wonder if Microsoft was actually trying to acquire Macromedia a few months ago... and the work on "Sparkle" is the reason why it didn't happen.
C'mon Macromedia (and Adobe): Go Linux!
1) Think of catchy name
2) Buy out the competition
3) Edit > Search and Replace
4) ?????
5) Profit!
_________ Help me get a PSP!
I for one welcome our new Sparkle overlords.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I have to totally agree with you. By the time Sparkle ships there will be 1-2 more releases of Flash.
This isn't the first time that Microsoft has tried to do this - anyone remember Chrome?
The MS dittoheads will talk it up but in six months if no one has used it in "real" projects it will die a quiet death. That is if it even ships with Longhorn in the first place.
Macromedia will be just like Intuit - one of the very few that can withstand the onslaught from Microsoft.
Man Holmes
When MS releases this killer technology, they will require people to use it, to produce content for it, to give its output the same kind of appeal that the Flash gurus produce. Now, if the majority of the talent is Mac-based, and can't author "Sparkle" content from a Mac, then there won't be as much pretty, attractive output to convince people to adopt.
...oh crap. I guess it would be a problem if Microsoft were to also release a stable and robust IDE for producing Sparkle content on the Mac, huh?
No offense, but this whole thing would not be going on if people would quit buying MS products. They are being aggressors, and we are funding them. Fuck MS and fuck you if you give them money.
If M$ deploys this in longhorn and incorporates into to their web development tools then M$ will be another step closer to owning something they could not buy....the internet. They are already doing this for the most part. A lot of their web development tools are generating code and services that are Windows and IE only. Some content generated by these products are viewable on no other platform or browser other then what Microsoft puts out, for no other reason than they were created with MS products. What a way to control the net....want to view this page? Then buy Windows. Forget that the web was built on open standards, M$ will try to make it M$internet any way they can. Do you think that they will strive to make it run on other platforms like Macromedia has? Does Balmer have hair? This may sound like a conspiracy theory but have you tried to complain to the government about Microsofts compliance to the anti-trust lawsuit from the webpage MS has set up? If you are not running windows it can't be done.
Maybe Macromedia shouldn't have given the Linux folks a cold shoulder while sharecropping for Microsoft. They might not have such a bleek outlook if they had released the flash file format spec before it was reverse engineered or released a flash player before an alternative was released.
Flash isn't the only thing they have going for them. I'm not a huge Macromedia fan but even I can see that they aren't just about Flash (yes, I hate Flash too). That's actually a pretty small part of their business now.
They have a great HTML/JSP/PHP/ASP editor (Dreamweaver) as well as a pretty decent J2EE application server (JRun) and the only Coldfusion server... of course all of this is because they bought Allaire but you gotta give them props for seeing this coming.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
My IIGS had some option to open Sparkle animation files in some old application... Do you think Microsoft took the same thing and just made it processor and memory intensive?
I love my computer -- You make me feel alright (Bad Religion)
it has to be said (probably repeatedly, mod me redundant, I don't give a fuck, I'm just pissed and have to vent)--who writes these stupid fucking blurbs? "Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?" Puh-fucking-lease. Anybody who remembers chrome from five years ago knows that Macromedia is in no danger from some nonexistant piece of barely-announced MS vaporware. The world is no longer in a position of "Oh God, I'll stop using this great product that exists today because MS says they'll release something better in two-thousand-fucking-six. Yeah, I'll just stop working altogether, sit on my hands, and wait for three years." MS has cried wold a few dozen too many times for FUD to be the effective instant competition-killer it once was. Macromedia faces greater danger in the possibility of having their San Francisco headquarters slide into the bay after an earthquake than they do from any vaporous MS announcement.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
First off, you might have preferred IE over Netscape. That was your personal preference. (Or maybe, you're a paid M$ shill, whatever)
However, I worked at a company that would not even let me install Netscape on my desktop because it didn't come from Microsoft. There was no debate about merit, cost/benefit, best use for my needs, anything of the sort.
It didn't come packaged with windows, I didn't have a choice even though I was informed and wanted one. People who didn't even know that there are other browsers available, didn't have a choice either. So, now you're going to tell me that had no effect on who won the 'browser wars?' If that's what you think, then you are a shill.
Windows has finally reached a stability that Linux/Unix/Mac has been boasting for a very long time.
Minor nitpick: Mac has not been boasting about stability for very long. Infact, I'd say Microsoft has been boasting about stability since NT 3.5. Mac has been boasting about stability since OS X. Of course that also means MS has actually been boasting about stability for at least as long as Linux. That leaves Unix which these days is a small player (Windows = ~50%, Linux = ~25%, everyone else fights for the remaining scraps). If you're stable and no one wants to use your product, what's it really matter?
On the subject of the Longhorn Flash Killer, I hope Microsoft does make a Flash killer because I think they could make it better than Macromedia can. They just have more and better resources to throw at it.
Flash could be so much better. For instance, why are there not more standard "widgets" like combo boxes and list boxes? If you want a Tree menu in your Flash movie, you have to build it yourself. (I know, you might think there is a Tree menu out there, but none of them work well)
For instance, try using single quotes for strings inside of a Javascript block. It screws the color coding up badly. The tool windows are super annoying as well, since they don't stay were they're supposed to and don't dock properly to each other.
These are just a few from the top of my head, but they screwed it up when they got it from Allaire.
Flash is available for Win, Mac, Linux, several "devices", and probably being ramped up for many more.
Flash has swarms of developers with years of experience who won't switch platforms without a *major* reason for doing so. Microsoft has shown how you can keep the installed base of developers in your camp by responding to every competitor's every move with "we'll have that in the next version". Macromedia can do that, too.
Developers already know that Macromedia has no deeper platform agenda. Instead of trying to make Windows PCs and devices look good and all others look bad, Macromedia offers its developers the promise of being able to cash in, no matter which OSes and devices become popular. That's the promise of Dreamweaver vs. Front Page, too.
I can see Windows developers using these technologies in-house within a Windows company. (I'm doing something similar right now with C#.) But no external Web developer would use something like this unless it offered such enormous advantages over Flash that Macromedia couldn't even *claim* to match them in an upcoming version. I don't see that happening.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Why is it on Slashdot everybody has to point out the devil's advocate side of things, when nobody has pointed out the obvious?
A quick search for the word "monopoly" reveals that noone has used it yet under this article.
Is it such a given that Microsoft will take advantage of its monopoly that we no longer complain, but rather look forward to it?
Microsoft will incorporate the "Sparkle" player into the operating system, especially Internet Explorer. They will then sell the Sparkle-creating app at a nice fat premium.
Hell, they'll probably also stop including Flash as a default plugin in Internet Explorer.
Goodbye Flash!
I hope they don't succeed... especially since there's no way they will make a Linux version of the player. I don't always want to see Flash... but sometimes I do, and it's nice that I don't have to reboot under Windows just to watch a little animation.
MS seems to have the most advanced and pathological form of 'not invented here' syndrome. Otherwise known as (re)invent everything here.
I mean were do we begin on things that have been reinvented instead of enhancing other things? WAV, BMP, activeX, directX, an intended competitor to pdf (cocoa?), an intended replacement of java (also called cocoa?), their own implementation of java, their own implementation of mpeg4. I dont know what else.
When computer industry will realise that microsoft does not have partners, only usefull pieces.
They will launch a terrible software tight to windows API, they will put in it 5 or 6 features and tell everybody that this features is more important than all other features in competitor product. They will integrate this on all versions of windows, Give a development tool for free and convince all other software makers to support the new software. 3 years past the competitor will be dead. Microsoft will stop to concern about this software and will aim theirs cannons to another one.
Worse than that, and in keeping with Microsoft's usual BS, the more frightening aspect is the following:
A lot of the goals Microsoft is aiming at with "Sparkle" are the same as those Flash is looking to accomplish, one source said. But the tool goes beyond Flash in delivering a .NET application that has access to all the APIs (define) in Longhorn,
So Microsoft is going to embed their flash-alike in the OS and give it full free reign over the OS like they did IE and messenger (and look where it got them! 5000 exploits all remote root exploits! Tons of Viruses!) Now you will be able to get a virus from watching sparkle cartoons!
This is just too ridiculous for words. I hope the idiots who still use Windows are paying attention because Microsoft is still punishing its customers. Are they all masochists? I mean, really, instead of making things nicer for customers they are making it harder every day, and making the computing experience under windows more horrifying. Yet people line up to give them money for the pleasure just as they line up for the dungeons. I seriously think Microsoft is beginning to use their monopoly position to make fun of its own customer base and inflict pain and suffering on them simply so Bill can collapse in schadenfreude-induced laughter in his castle.
It is the height of absurdity that people use Windows at all in such conditions.
...how many of Microsoft's "Customer's" products have to be treated as if they are nothing more than a crop to be harvested by Microsoft after they become profitable enough before the entire out of house Microsoft development community get's the message?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Sorry, but I'm not a shill for Microsoft. And yes, it is only my opinion that IE is better than Navigator, and it doesn't have to be your opinion. But your resentment at your employer's refusal to allow non-Microsoft browsers doesn't mean that Navigator was a better browser, and the actions of your employer were the actions of your employer, not of Microsoft.
Did bundling have an effect on who won the browser wars? Sure. But Netscape Navigator floundered - it could have stood a chance had it been a better product, and I'd have a lot more sympathy towards Netscape if it was.
I'm not weeping any tears for 3dfx, or even nVidia. Why should I cry for Netscape?
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Now, if Macromedia provided some useful options with its plugin, everyone would be happier. Apart from people with "fly-in" ads which make stupid noises. By catering to these people, the company is making a statement that this is what Flash is good for. Not good for its rep.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Or it will be so integrated with the development environment that any old schmoe can do the easy stuff. Macromedia's software will still used by the hardcore professionals for a time, but the loss of marketshare will hurt. Innovation at Macromedia eventually stalls as they cut staff to try to stop the ship sinking. Microsoft pour resources on Sparkle making version 2 on par with Macromedia. Macromedia finally tanks or is bought out by Microsoft.
Ok, that was a worst case scenario that was ignores the cross browser/platform market totally but is it impossible? Macromedia is going to have to stay on its toes for a while.
Trogdor, the burninator
Flash will never die
It's hard to tell the cool to chill, my favorite hotel room has a view to an ill.
Friends don't let friends use flash.
Someone hates these cans.
This should be an interesting struggle. Macromedia has a number of popular professional web development products in addition to their popular flash line and large head start in animation. On the other hand Microsoft is probably the worst competitor a company could possibly come up against. They play fast and big and have the cash and credit to turn out your lights. They can buy anything or anyone they want in their quest to beat you and your products into submission. Most companies prefer to partner with them rather than compete directly against them. Anyone who has not already partnered with them is either or bit player or has joined the Rebel Alliance led by IBM and Sun Microsystems. Unless Macromedia gets the long term support of a wealthy patron such as IBM the pressure that Microsoft can bring to bear will eventually break them. At the very least that would make an interesting contract position on tradesports:
TradeSports
I, for one, welcome our new proprietary, animated, vector graphics overlords.
-- Princess Leia
actually there is a flash-killer made ...
alambik viewer seems to be very nice system indeed.
http://www.net-viewer.com/
(i hope they pay me for this:)
class he-man extends man!
The difference is the level of control, esp. on Linux. Java, EMCAScript and Flash or have very poor control facilities (EMCAScript is getting somewhat better, but I'd still turn it off). Flash can be nice (homesteader comes to mind -- but this is more a comment on the quality of video players than anything), but it's use for banner adds or for frontpages is very annoying.
So you don't think it would be better as a dia/visio file?
For most usage SVG should nicly replace it, for the portable vector video we're probably stuck with it for a while :(.
ustr: Managed string API with ave. 44% overhead over strdup(), for 0-20B
This project is currently not implemented in the longhorn pre-beta released at the PDC.
For those interested in longhorn, take a look at a review I made:
Maybe it will suck less than Flash and Director.
Macromedia is one of the most overrated companies of all-time.
They're successful in spite of their best efforts...
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Dreamweaver / Flash Goals: To provide web professionals high quality development tools.
Frontpage / Sparkle Goads: To make web idiots feel like professionals in their little dream world.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
so give me your ORIGINAL IDEA.
bet the SIMPSONS did it.
just saying your a zealot. Apple has made REAL innovation in places where microsoft has actually gone backwords. People bitch about stuff in X.2, and it get's changed in X.3 along with nifty new features that are actually USEFUL, the os seems to get FASTER and even more STABLE with each release (for the majorities)
YOU GET PATCHES. LOTS OF PATCHES.
and palladium.
enjoy.
nt
Aren't you people gonna be sad when there are no alternatives? or will you finally be happy playing your DirectX 9 games on your XP box with your MS Mouse and keyboard playing MS flight simulator. and MS users have no options but to use IE, not just for the internet, but basically for the whole OS!!! but seriously parent is insightful. ms carries the masses with a scary percentage of the market place. it's a loose loose situation. less get's innovated as there's less compitiion, = fewer options & higher prices for the consumer based on what MS thinks is right. stop thinking MS is in anyway open, or caring about anything but the bottom line, and it's position in the market place. bad bad bad. three cheers for zealots and people who don't know better, keeping ms strong since '94
Han Solo: We should be coming up on Flash now. .....(insert rest of quote).....
Obi-wan:Thats no Flash
Luke: Then what is it
Obi-wan: Thats a Sparkle!
Lame I know
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Lets not forget sendmail, that abomination of a MTA.
*pats his POSTFIX box that filters all my mail going to my Exchange servers*
With any content based product, it's not about the creation product's install, it's all about the viewer's install. That's why graphic design shops are still for the most part Mac shops. Even though, most of the graphic design programs are available to Windows.
Flash has already saturated the viewer market.
However, I will say that if Microsoft decides it wants to remedy that, they can sure pull the same sort of mess they did with Netscape. But, I don't suspect they'll have much success in the long run. The shockwave player is already available on so many platforms including the OS platforms. And MS will generally not touch the OS platforms with a 33 and 1/2 foot poll.
Now, if Microsoft decides to be sneaky and use Marcromedia's flash players (which I HIGHLY doubt), that will give them the install base. But, it will also put them at Macromedias legal and technological will. Not MS's style.
Star Pirates
MS Vizact 2.0. We all know what it is.
# Erik
Does anyone know what ever happened to the Sparkle Movie Player for old Macs? System 7 days. A fair/good alternative to Quicktime in the day, default on a few browsers for mpegs I believe. I wonder if the developer still owns the name?
These are some of the things molecules do...... given 4 billion years -Carl Sagan
Dreamweaver / Flash Goals: To provide web designers high quality cross-platform development tools.
Frontpage / Sparkle Goads: To make an extension of their current operating system and office suite.
Meanwhile, the worst developers continue working on security and reliability issues.