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HTML 5 Takes Aim At Flash and Silverlight

Posted by kdawson on from the crowding-out-the-proprietary dept.

snydeq writes "While Adobe, Microsoft, and Sun duke it out with proprietary technologies for implementing multimedia on the Web, HTML 5 has the potential to eat these vendors' lunches, offering Web experiences based on an industry standard. In fact, one expressed goal of the standard is to move the Web away from proprietary technologies such as Flash, Silverlight, and JavaFX. 'It would be a terrible step backward if humanity's major development platform [the Web] was controlled by a single vendor the way that previous platforms such as Windows have been,' says HTML 5 co-editor Ian Hickson, a Google employee. But whether HTML 5 and its Canvas technology will displace proprietary plug-ins 'really depends on what developers do,' says Firefox technical lead Vlad Vukicevic. It also depends on Microsoft, the only company involved in the HTML 5 effort that is both a browser developer and an RIA tool developer. 'That's a big elephant in the room for them because you can imagine the Silverlight team [whose] whole existence is to add [this] functionality in. [But] if Internet Explorer puts it already in there, why do we have Silverlight?' asks Mozilla's Dion Almaer." The RIA guys are quoted as saying they're not worried, because HTML 5 + CSS 3 is 10 years out. Are they just whistling in the dark?

2 of 500 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's the tools stupid by setagllib · · Score: 4, Informative

    You have to be kidding about Silverlight overtaking Flash. Not only has Silverlight failed to take any notable market share to date, many projects that started with Silverlight have switched to Flash (or even Java and JavaScript).

    Even Microsoft Popfly itself is so unpopular you can go for months at a time without hearing about it, and I bet you hadn't heard about it for months until just now.

    --
    Sam ty sig.
  2. I have an ARM, you insensitive clod by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'd also prefer SELF in the browser and with Native Client you'll be able to add SELF to your web pages!!!

    From the front page of the Native Client site, with my emphasis:

    Native Client is an open-source research technology for running x86 native code in web applications, with the goal of maintaining the browser neutrality, OS portability, and safety that people expect from web apps.

    That doesn't bode well for compatibility with ARM subnotebooks, ARM PDAs and PDA phones, PowerPC set-top boxes, etc.

    And even on devices with a GenuineIntel or AuthenticAMD CPU, it's far from ready. From the release notes:

    Support for the following browsers is not available at this time:

    • Internet Explorer

    [...]
    Native Client does not work on 64-bit versions of Windows.