Cross-Platform Microsoft

willdavid sends us to the ZDNet blogs for a provocative opinion piece by John Carroll. He points to Microsoft's evident cross-platform strategy with Silverlight, and wonders whether the company couldn't make money — and win friends — by extending its excellent development ecosystem cross-platorm. "Microsoft, apparently, is helping the folks at Mono to port Silverlight to Linux. This is good news, as the primary fear I've heard from developers is that Silverlight will be locked to Microsoft platforms and products. Microsoft has already committed to supporting Silverlight cross-browser on Windows, and has a version that runs on Mac OS X (which is even available from the Apple web site). The last step is Linux, and Microsoft is working with Novell and Mono to make this happen."

Comments

their goal is to protect Windows, Flash Must Die

[Locutus]

I'm sorry but MS Sliverlight is a direct attack on Adobe and their Flash product and this is a direct move to protect the Windows monopoly. Adobe Flash is a well established development platform which runs across all desktop computing platforms. Heck, Nokia even has it running on the N800. Adobe is the new Netscape and Flash the new Navigator with MS Silverlight being the new MS Internet Explorer.

So anything which grows that MS product will be good for protecting the Windows monopoly. If Flash is killed off, and in typical Microsoft fashion, MS Silverlight will become a Windows-only product. In 20 years of Microsoft history, there is absolutely NOTHING which shows any other path. A press release does not mean squat when it comes from Microsoft. Talk about doublespeak and truthiness.

And to even think that Microsoft wants to help enable Linux by the goodness of their heart is a fool. At Microsoft, it's all about 'Adobe must die, Linux must die. Long live Windows, long live Microsoft.' and only a complete newbie would/could think otherwise. IMO.

LoB

Re:bleh

[Locutus]

yup, MS Silverlight is their planned attempt at killing off not only Adobe Flash but also all this AJAX stuff. If they can kill off Flash, they'll make sure developers use Silverlight for browser application development and move as many as possible away from AJAX. In time, they'll start breaking AJAX components in their browser to harm those who stick with AJAX and we're back at web applications which only run on Microsoft Windows and which is ultimately controlled by Microsoft at the API levels. This sticks it to Google too. Because 'Google Must Die' is another Microsoft concept these days.

Read your history books folks, it's all in Microsoft's history. Who needs a crystal ball?

LoB

Extinguish

[Tony]

First, you have to recognize the target, which is *not* Linux. It's Flash.

Right now, Flash is a cross-platform delivery system for highly interactive content. (READ: unstable piece of shit that is not a real standard.) It's very popular for media players (Youtube), ads, and cheezy games. It basically made ActiveX irrelevent, and Microsoft is still a little peeved.

So, by helping the Mono folks make Silverlight available cross-platform, they get to look like the good guys, as well as give Adobe a full-frontal assault on Flash.

Right now, we are in the "embrace" stage.

Once Silverlight takes off and displaces Flash as the delivery system of choice for shitty-assed content, Microsoft will be free to extend Silverlight in any way they desire, without passing those changes on to the Mac or to Mono. So, they get to extinguish Java and Flash, and then once Silverlight is the only delivery system on the internet, they get to displace the web, as well.

This is just like their bid with ActiveX. The main difference is, they learned their lesson the first time. Don't make it MS-Windows-only until *after* it is perceived as the only system available.

Yes, this is paranoid ranting. But after you've been kicked in the balls four or five times by someone, you get a little antsy around them.