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MS To Push Silverlight Via Redesigned Microsoft.com
Marilyn M. writes "It looks like Microsoft is getting desperate about the dismal rates of Silverlight adoption by consumers and developers since its release earlier this year. According to NeoSmart Technologies, Microsoft is preparing a fully Silverlight-powered redesign of their website, doing away with most HTML pages entirely. With over 60 million unique users visiting Microsoft.com a month, Microsoft's last-ditch effort might be what it takes to breathe some life back into Silverlight. The article notes: 'At the moment, very few non-Microsoft-owned sites are using Silverlight at all; let alone for the entire UI.'"
It's bad enough MSDN Library still doesn't work properly with Firefox after three years of using it. It took until last year for Microsoft.com to work even remotely well in a non-IE browser... I can only imagine how many people will stop using microsoft.com altogether.
If it wasn't required to visit windowsupdate.com, it would be the nail in IE's coffin.
If it doesn't work in Firefox, I'm not interested.
I will add, if it does not work with Firefox/Linux, not interested.
The nice thing about Silverlight is that it is a breeze to program and work with.
I think, once the initial knee-jerk anti-MS crud is past, people won't mind. Just like any web/presentation technology, it has it's pros and cons. But look, to work with Silverlight, to create Silverlight, you don't need an expensive suite of tools.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I remember when Netscape introduced frames, they changed the netscape.com website to use them. It lasted a few months, then they realised how silly they were and changed their website back.
Silverlight may be good for embedded applets and for applications, but it's ludicrous to use it for an entire website. I expect that Microsoft will shortly figure this out.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
It's not about them using it themselves.
It's about them leveraging an existing product to force the adoption of a new product.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
That bit, the third numbered bullet, is what matters. They aren't doing something special, they are just forcing their technology on others because they can. Now I'm kind of interested in seeing what happens, because frankly I think MS's current site is a mess (I can never find what I'm looking for). But if they are going to push something like this they should go all out and demonstrate what it can do, not just use it in place of JavaScript (which they tried to replace with VBScript and failed) and AJAX (which they invented, to a degree).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Does it come with a perl silverlight-generating library ? Because I can make flash on the fly now; is silverlight open ? Does it script ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
I'm guessing only mircrsofts search engine will be able to index pages buried on the revised microsoft.com site until other search engines add silver-light navigation to their crawlers?
I don't know about anyone else but I use Google to find KB articles.
How to Google-proof your site in one easy step!
Hmmm... Ok so tell me how often are you going to be visiting the Microsoft website if you happen to be a Linux and Firefox user?
Probably 0....
So in other words they don't care about your situation because most likely you are not going to visit it. Makes completely logical sense actually.
Not that I think their strategy is great...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
This site doesn't force me to use Flash.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Full Tilt
All trolling and MS-hating aside, Silverlight is not meant for the World Wide Web. Rather, it is, like many other Microsoft products (SharePoint, PerformancePoint, BizTalk, etc) for the corporate intranet. The corporate IT department can simply force the software onto everybody's computer, and the developers can easily develop a *real* UI without having to fumble around with trying to make HTML behave like Windows Forms.
I will add, if it does not work with Firefox/Linux, not interested.
Will you be interested when it does work with Linux, which it's supposed to do "at the beginning of 2008"?For those interested in Linux/Silverlight info, the Linux version is called "Moonlight" and is being developed by Novell with Microsoft's help.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
It looks like Microsoft is getting desperate about the dismal rates of Silverlight adoption by consumers and developers since its release earlier this year
This is just about as ridiculous as it gets. Let's at least get 'facts' out of the way.
Face #1, The final version of Silverlight 1.0 was released just a couple of months ago. Even the designers (Blend, etc) haven't had full final version native support for over a month. Do you really think MS is 'desperate' that in a month or two every web site in the world hasn't converted?
Fact #2, MS already has a large following of providers preparing and starting stream and video based web video content sites based on Silverlight. Since it can do things like flip channels as fast a TV, etc companies looking to provide multi-stream content are going with Silverlight as it is the only viable solution - let alone the only multi-platform solution.
Fact #3, a majority of Video pushed over the web is already in VC1/WMV format, yes this sounds strange with all the flash/Tube sites, but Windows Media is still either at the very top or close. Silverlight natively uses the same content, so for any site using WMV content already, they will flip to silverlight, as it will increase their user base.
Fact #4, Silverlight is about a 2mb download, I see posts where people seem to think this is a big issue, are these people still using 2400baud modems?
Fact #5, The major version of SilverLight is Version 1.1, and can be downloaded by developers/end users. Version 1.1 is the major version as 1.0 is only the graphical and video portion of the technology with limited UI abilities. (1.0 is the basic drawing and compatibility layers, and MS doesn't expect most people to consider Silverlight until 1.1, that is why the 'standard developer version they offer is 1.1, not 1.0) Silverlight 1.1 adds in the UI basic interface technologies like simple control events, additional hit testing, etc. Without 1.1.
The Microsoft Download site has been Silverlight based for a few weeks, but it is a conceptual site, and it is demonstrated to developers of multiple page content areas can interact beyond a single SilverLight Control.
Fact #6, a Silverlight based Website does not mean the entire page is based on Silverlight or the page is shown in only one Silverlight control like Flash based web design is. Silverlight is light enough that each Image element can be replaced with a Silverlight Object instead, and when needed, Silverlight Objects can use standard client/server scripting for communication and functionality between the Objects.
It would be easier to think of Silverlight like a 'fancy' image object that can be scripted, take events, and talk to the client/server and other image objects on the page. This is what makes silverlight ahead of Flash, even before v1.1 is released.
Now with facts out of the way, this makes a freaking difference in the OSS world how? One proprietary company/product is competing against another that is just as nefarious, and they are BOTH winning against ALL OSS solutions.
Maybe OSS should actually be pushing for Silvelight to win, as you can at least create Silverlight content in notepad for free, and aren't forced to buy a massive Adobe illustration package just to put a few pretty buttons or videos on your site.
Back to the anti-Microsoft goose-stepping...
http://www.mhall119.com
1. Via silverlight MS is going to leverage its huge install base to move to the next phase of its business model - i.e. "adapt". 2. Over time silverlight uptake will adapt your web access to their proprietry model. 3. When this process of adaption is well beyond a critical point the benevolence towards other OSes will end and no new vesions of Silverlight will appear for Linux or OSX. 4. Javascript will be replaced with .NET, the adaption will be complete.
5. HTML & Javascript will wither on the vine or a small second tier web will co-exist.
6. MS will own the web.
This is key to MS survival so if you think they are pushing Silverlight with a few irritating pop-ups...
"you ain't seen nothing yet!"
we are all cosmic nuclear waste
I think this is more of a case of farming out production of software to someone who actually knows the platform. Microsoft developing for Linux would be hilarious, better to let someone who knows what they are doing develop a compatible product.
Good point. People on /. should stop trying to talk about how great Linux and MacOSX are. I mean, if they were so great they would be dominant already.
New products always need advertising. But what I'm really curious about is how is Silverlight not great? I haven't examined the issue yet (I thought it was still in Beta, so I don't consider their advertising excessibe), but you obviously have carefully weighted all the pros and cons, so I'm interested in your view. Or maybe your logic was "Boo, hiss, MS is the devil."
Your ad here. Ask me how!
If you'd said "encourage" rather than "force", you might have had a point....
Microsoft keeps shooting itself in the foot lately. Vista isn't even popular among pirates. MS Office 2008 for Mac removes the one feature that made it worthwhile in past versions (VBA support). MS Office 2007 removes support for older file formats.
Mac sales are at an all time high and increasing. Linux usability is better than ever and drawing converts. OpenOffice and NeoOffice support VBA. Microsoft should be focusing on not pissing off its userbase and the potential users on who currently use other platforms, not making a product that annoys people by requiring a download from them and doesn't work properly on other platforms. They should try to make a decent product that people are willing to pay for and not remove right away. Silverlight won't become the dominant web development system. It is just another part in Microsoft's plan to drive themselves into irrelevance over the next decade. Maybe they'll go back to being an application developer for other systems, more like they were before Windows and DOS.
Specifically, notice how you can view their entire homepage without Flash.
I'd imagine you can view the entire site, save for Flash-specific stuff, without Flash.
It's one thing to use their technology themselves, but this tells me that Microsoft is actually using Silverlight to replace HTML, which is something that is generally considered bad when people do it with Flash, and is also something that even Adobe isn't doing with Flash.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Doesn't matter what add-on MS slipped in. The script blocker which my company requires includes Silverlight blocking. No Microsoft.com for you! And there will be some handicapped accessibility issues if there is no HTML.
"Basically, Flash is a ubiquitous open-standard with mature development tools and tons of 3rd-party partners."
Yeah, that's exactly why linux has waited years before finally getting Flash 9. And to think that post is modded insightful.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I'll tell you how Silverlight is Not Great, and I've never used it in the slightest. And it's not because it's by Microsoft, or because it's not free.
/x?html/.
It's Not Great for the same reason Flash is Not Great: it almost always results in a worse user interface than using normal
For the developer the site is The Thing. It's important that the site has clean code, looks cool, and is easy to maintain. Maybe Silverlight makes that possible.
For the user the site is likely just one stop on a journey tied together by a web search. It's important that the site behaves similarly to all others in certain respects: that the browser's navigation facilities work, that the browser's text search works, that input behavior for these are the same as on all other pages (keeping in mind that key bindings, mouse bindings, context menus, etc. vary from browser to browser and user to user). Flash breaks this, and if Silverlight doesn't do the same I'll be shocked.
For the developer it's tempting to think the site is a book to be read from start to finish. But users are more likely to look in the index, tear out a few pages, and glue them into collages of their own creation. The developer can use the introductory chapters to lay out unusual notational conventions that will apply throughout the text but the user, not having read from the beginning, is only confused to see them used in the middle. If you're tempted to cry and bitch about this as a developer, get over yourself: users have more important things to do in life than figure out this super cool new interface to your web site.
A big part of the reason the web took off is that its limited facilities for UI design forced sites to mostly follow the same conventions. If you want to do something better, more complicated, something that people have to learn, then write a damn desktop app.
(Yes, there are useful and good things that can be done by embedding Flash/Java in web pages. Nifty videos and games, no-install VNC and ssh clients... as long as they stay self-contained and aren't part of the page's navigation or textual information presentation, knock yourself out).
In fact, Microsoft is only changing their download area to use Silverlight. In other words, surprise surprise - a kdawson article that is simply false. It's amazing, I know.
"Personally I'll stick with my Microsoft keyboard and mouse which work surprisingly well with Windows, Linux, and OSX."
That's something Microsoft does right. When I have to enumerate the best products Microsoft makes, I say, in that order, the Natural keyboard series, their mice and SQL Server (which is a respectable database server, even if it runs on a less than respectable OS).
Those three are good.
As for the rest... Well... They did the Apple II+ BASIC, didn't they? That was cool.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Silverlight is just out of beta and the real big 2.0 release is still months away. I somehow doubt MS is "desperate" about anything. The article about MS adopting themselves is great, the desperation comment is really just flamebait. DC
http://chicagodave.wordpress.com
Bzzzzzt! Wrong answer. I would agree with you if one had to purchase Sliverlight, but one doesn't. It, like Flash, is free.
Also, no one has to visit the MS website.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Or when I want to download an eval copy of an MS product to play with in a VM.
:-)
PS: Better work in Safari/OS X.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Agreed. Mono is a piece of crap on its own merits. I apologize if I gave any other impression.
Your argument of deliberate X11 incompatibilities is nice (though difficult to accept at face value), but ignores the fact that 90% of my rant centered around the craptactular development environment that is shipped as "Mono". It's decidedly developer-unfriendly, and using it on a Mac was not the cause of that.
On a system where Java is installed, things are easy to build and run. I can run "ant all" and everything magically compiles. I can look at the documentation and understand what every class and method does. If it runs on one system, I can expect it to run on the rest. Dependencies are clearly defined and easy to resolve. (And explicitly clear when tied to a given OS due to JNI dependencies.)
None of that describes Mono. Mono is a piece of crap that simply perpetuates a poor state of dependency hell, while wrapping your core software in a semi-portable bytecode that provides no real-world advantage in portability.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Good point! I'd better go patch out the MS Word support for OpenOffice.
There's also two other issues here: Some countries do not allow software patents. For the rest of us, there is still the question of "What's a sane alternative?" No matter where you go in the software industry, you'll be running into patents.
All that said, I do actually agree that it's maybe not the safest move, and that I would much rather start from scratch.
Oh, on a related note: Remember the whole GIF controversy? For quite a long time, the only reasonable alternative was to use JPEGs everywhere, because it was either GIF or JPEG. It took a long time for PNG to be widely supported enough to be a replacement for GIF, and various ways of animating PNGs aren't really officially standardized, and are certainly not commonly supported.
So, at a certain point, you have to ask yourself if you'll actually have a completely open replacement created by the time the patent runs out.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!