Microsoft Prefers Flash To Silverlight

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft still has not adopted Silverlight, and uses Flash all over its websites. 'Despite all the controversy over Microsoft using Silverlight to take over the rich internet market from Adobe Flash, the software giant seems to be not even trying. In fact, even most Microsoft web sites are using Flash instead of Silverlight.'"

Comments

Re:Silverlight is insignificant

[modmans2ndcoming]

uhhh.... news flash, there is an OS X and Linux runtime.

JavaFX.com is Java-free

[ewg]

JavaFX.com uses JavaScript and QuickTime to promote the benefits of JavaFX. No JVM needed.

(Of course, you still have to visit the Wikipedia article for an introduction in context.)

Re:Silverlight is insignificant

[Gavagai80]

Newsflash: getting silverlight (moonlight) to actually install on Linux takes a team of experts, and even if you manage that it'll fail on most pages. It's no more accurate to say that there's a silverlight for linux than it is to say that all windows programs run in linux thanks to wine.

Re:Silverlight is insignificant

[Richard_at_work]

The Linux runtime is being supplied by Moonlight, from the Mono team - its opensource and is available from here http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight - vet away.

Re:Silverlight is insignificant

[gbjbaanb]

I'm sure silverlight is quite a good technology.

but who cares, they turned me off it when I kept getting popups asking if I wanted to install it, am I sure I don't, no really we think you should. oh ok, I'll ask again next time you visit any page in case you've changed your mind.

I installed it in the end just to shut the damn thing up, and even then it refused to install. I almost cried with the frustration! The CIA could use this technique to get their terrorist suspects to talk.

MS doesn't often plan their takeover of markets, someone someehere in the depths of MS's vast ranks of development makes something cool, others within MS get to hear of it, its attracts some takeup,, and then everone in MS thinks that becuase they like it, you will too. And if you don't like it - tough, as they want you to have it so it becomes ubiqutous enough that they can use it everywhere without worrying about it. Hence the push to have silverlight installed everywhere.

Of course, that's the old way of MS planning. Now, someone at MS decides they can make money from it/increase market share/dominate a market, and so they tell everyone at MS to push it everywhere. It often doesn't work - look at .net and how much takeup they have there from the Office, Windows and now the Visual Studio teams. But you, as a MS consumer, still get the marketing message pushed down your throat like it or not.

BTW, they cannot 'flip the switch' and have you have it, they'd get sued. Again. That's why you have to opt-in to silverlight. Whether you want it or not.

Re:Silverlight is insignificant

[ozmanjusri]

Perhaps someone can illustrate to me why I'm wrong and it really is good for application development and I'm just missing something every time I come to look it it (perhaps because the books and documentation are almost all aimed at animators+designers, not developers?).

Yes, you're wrong.

It's a shame you spent so much effort writing all that and none on Googling, because there is plenty of information out there.

Adobe's own application platform for Flash is Flex. OpenLaszlo is an open-source XML based programming language for developing apps in SWF. Flash itself also has a substantial component collection for app development, and finally, there are dozens of third-party ActionScript IDEs and compliers available.

That's why Microsoft is introducing Silverlight. Flash is threatening to become an OS-independent application platform which could make Windows irrelevant.

Re:Silverlight is insignificant

[dvice_null]

And as wikipedia says: "but as a lot of work still needs to be done[7], no firm date has yet been given on the Moonlight website."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_(runtime)#cite_note-status-6

Re:Silverlight is insignificant

[jsebrech]

Basically though, I think Flash has just gone too far down the wrong route, as application development in it seems like a hack. Perhaps someone can illustrate to me why I'm wrong and it really is good for application development and I'm just missing something every time I come to look it it (perhaps because the books and documentation are almost all aimed at animators+designers, not developers?).

You're indeed missing something, because you're looking at the wrong product. Adobe's product for developing web applications for the flash player is called flex. Go take a look at some flex books (for flex 2 or 3), and be enlightened.

In my opinion flex can go toe-to-toe with any client-side web dev platform, be it silverlight, java client, java/gwt, extjs, or whatever.

Actionscript 3 is modern language that encourages good development practices. The flex framework is complete, fast, light, easy to extend, and easy to work with. And mxml, flex's xaml-equivalent, well, just check it out, it's really nice.

I see it as quite opposite. Silverlight doesn't offer a compelling featureset to lure people away from flash/flex. It doesn't do anything development-wise that might tempt flex developers, and it cannot integrate animators and designers as good as the flash / flex combination can.

Re:Silverlight is insignificant

[ozmanjusri]

The SWF format isn't open.

It IS open.

On May 1, 2008, as part of its Open Screen Project, Adobe dropped all restrictions on the SWF and FLV formats.

A response from Denny Boynton

[benwaggoner]

This said it better than I could have:

http://blog.dennyboynton.com/post/Why-is-Microsoft-So-Slow-to-Adopt-Silverlight.aspx

...when I talk to people about adopting Silverlight, they always make the comment, "I already have so much Flash built into my web site, I don't know where to start with Silverlight." Well, the good news is you don't have to throw out the baby with the bath water. The fact of the matter is that you can begin to implement Silverlight where it makes sense in your web site without modifying or removing any of the Flash assets you already have in place. Silverlight will run just fine in a web page with Flash, so you can iteratively begin the process if implementing Silverlight and, if prudent, replacing Flash to take advantage of XAML, developer/designer collaboration, developing in managed code and all the other benefits Silverlight has to offer. No expensive and painful "big bang" replacement is necessary. Find a requirement for which Silverlight is a good fit and implement it. It's as simple as that.

The truth is, while the rest of the world would hold Microsoft to a higher standard than any other company, at the end of the day Microsoft works very much like the IT shops you probably work in. Each Microsoft product and web site has a team of developers and product managers that have a finite budget, timeline and resource pool in which to work. Believe me, if Silverlight could be deployed as a replacement to Flash across all Microsoft web sites next week, it would certainly make my job a hell of a lot easier, but that's not possible and difficult decisions have to be made in order to deliver a multitude of solutions currently underway on time and on budget.

I can all but guarantee you that there are roadmaps in place to adopt Silverlight across most or all of the Microsoft web assets. That adoption will be rolled-out in a manner that delivers value to the business and as it makes sense. You're seeing that adoption begin on Microsoft.com and MSDN, and should see it on more Microsoft sites in the coming months and years, a very timely example being the new Expression Suite web site, all built in Silverlight...