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Major League Baseball Dumps Silverlight For Flash

Posted by kdawson on from the silverlight-in-the-pan dept.

christian.einfeldt writes "This week, Major League Baseball will open without Microsoft's Silverlight at the plate, according to Bob Bowman, CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which handles much of the back-end operations for MLB and several other leagues and sporting events. The change was decided on last year but was set to be rolled out this spring. Among the causes of MLB's disillusionment with Silverlight were technical glitches users experienced, including needing administrator privileges to install the plugin (often impossible in workplaces). Baseball's opening day last year was plagued by Silverlight instability, with many users unable to log on and others unable to watch games. Adobe Flash already exists on 99% of user machines, said Bowman, and Adobe is 'committed to the customer experience in video with the Flash Player.' MLBAM's decision to dump Silverlight is particularly problematic for Microsoft's effort to compete with Adobe, due to the fact that MLBAM handles much of the back-end operations for CBS' Webcasts of the NCAA Basketball Tournament and this year will do the encoding for the 2009 Masters golf tournament."

12 of 388 comments (clear)

  1. Why make the leap in the first place? by XorNand · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wish the article would have explained why MLB went with Silverlight in the first place. What kind of arm-twisting (or hooker-and-blow-providing) could MS have possibly done to convince a company to take such a major financial gamble? For the most part, Silverlight is largely unproven tech and--to add insult to injury--proprietary. Can someone explain the appeal?

    --
    Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
    1. Re:Why make the leap in the first place? by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can guess why.
      1. Microsoft probably offered a bunch of technical help.
      2. Silverlight has a much better programing model the Flash. I have not looked at Flex yet but Flash is nasty.
      3. Probably thought that they would get better performance out of it.

      Flash is in this case is the Devil that we know. Silverlight is the Devil we don't so Flash will probably win this fight.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:Why make the leap in the first place? by Romancer · · Score: 5, Informative

      Depends on who it needed to appeal to.

      If it's management, it only needs to work in the demo and be new and shiny.

      If it's the IT dept it only needs to be stable and easily managed. Oh, and do the job.

      --


      ) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
      ) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
    3. Re:Why make the leap in the first place? by grahamd0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Silverlight has a much better programing model the Flash. I have not looked at Flex yet but Flash is nasty.

      Sure, the Flash IDE is a toy, the timeline is only useful for simple animation, and Actionscript 1 and 2 are crap, but Flash isn't bad at all if you're working on a pure code-based Actionscript 3 project.

    4. Re:Why make the leap in the first place? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Flash is no less proprietary.

      I beg to differ.

      http://www.openscreenproject.org/

      http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/30/adobes-open-screen-project-write-once-flash-everywhere/

    5. Re:Why make the leap in the first place? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I interviewed with them a few years ago.

      MLB.com had all their video in WMV and a pre-exisitng Windows Media Server infrastructure, because they were very concerned about rights management.

      Because they were a big Flash shop, they had to do a lot of mixing and matching Flash and JS to work with Windows Media player.

      When Silverlight came out, it looked like it would be an all-in-one deal that would let them retain their existing video infrastructure and clips, and be able to better utilize them inside the RIA's they build.

      They gave it a shot because it cost them almost nothing, MLB.com is rolling in dough and gets free stuff all the time because they're high profile.

    6. Re:Why make the leap in the first place? by Grishnakh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Flash is in this case is the Devil that we know. Silverlight is the Devil we don't so Flash will probably win this fight.

      Not true anymore. Apparently, Silverlight is now the Devil that MLBAM has gotten to know, and they decided they hated him so much that they went back to the other devil they already know, Flash.

      A high-profile reverse-course like this has got to be really bad news for MS. You'd think that, in trying to unseat Flash, they would have spent a little more effort making sure everything worked just right so that people wouldn't try it out and hate it, and go right back to what they were using before. Pissing off your early (and high-profile) adopters is NOT a good way to run a business and build marketshare.

    7. Re:Why make the leap in the first place? by RedK · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Except right now, it only supports WMV, WMA and MP3. That's pretty far from your assertion that it supports what the user wants. From your FAQ :

      Windows Media Audio and Video 7,8,9 (WMA, WMAPro, WMV/VC-1), as well as MP3 audio. Microsoft has announced support for H.264/MPEG AVC and AAC playback in a future version of Silverlight coming in early 2009. We will explore the need for additional formats and codecs based on customer feedback and market need over time. Our philosophy around media formats support is "choice". It is important to note that Silverlight is a format-agnostic RIA environment that should support any media format that users require. The addition of native H.264/AAC video and audio decode inside of Silverlight is all about providing choice to customers.

      So basically, either you have to ask Microsoft to support it or maybe write support yourself, which you'll probably then have to distribute to everyone. Yeah, way to be open...

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      Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
    8. Re:Why make the leap in the first place? by bondsbw · · Score: 5, Funny

      So basically, either you have to ask Microsoft to support it or maybe write support yourself, which you'll probably then have to distribute to everyone. Yeah, way to be open...

      Oh, that's ENTIRELY WRONG of them!!! I can't imagine what would have happened if, say, Linux had been created with such ideals...

      So basically, either you have to ask Linus to support it or maybe write support yourself, which you'll probably then have to distribute to everyone. Yeah, way to be open...

      Wow... I'm glad that never happened.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  2. Re:MSFT Icon is stale. by kv9 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is off topic, but Slashdot's MSFT icon is stale.

    I agree. I think the new icon should be a flying chair.

    --
    Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
  3. HTML 5? by RonGHolmes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm still surprised companies aren't jumping on the HTML 5 bandwagon. Eschew flash and plug-ins for native web browser applications and video. http://280slides.com/ is a great example of what can be done. The ObjectiveJ they're developing is truly amazing - and it's all browser native. Even IE 8 works. I hate to say it, but Apple are right for once - get rid of flash and other plug-in based user interfaces and get back to basics. Share your JavaScript frameworks, use local storage and more - embrace HTML 5.

  4. Re:work by WindowlessView · · Score: 5, Insightful

    why are people trying to watch MLB on their work computers in the first place?

    Have you ever watched or listened to a baseball game? It's been the chosen background noise of America since the 1930s. It's not like a lot happens that is going to disrupt your work.

    --
    Leave the gun, take the cannolis.