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Silverlight 5 — Back From the Dead?
Barence writes "When Microsoft executive Bob Muglia recently revealed that Microsoft saw HTML5 as the future for universal in-browser development while Silverlight was being repositioned as a native application development platform for Windows Phone 7 devices, most pundits saw this as an admission of defeat. Now Microsoft has released a beta of Silverlight 5, PC Pro's Tom Arah asks if Microsoft has managed to bring Silverlight back from the dead. With a flurry of Android and Linux-based tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes and other devices set to arrive on the market, Arah argues that Silverlight's time will come. 'Crucially, they will also want to integrate their desktop (Windows) and their main applications (Office and other WPF-based applications). Thanks to its work on HTML5, WPF and especially Silverlight, Microsoft and its army of desktop developers will be well set to deliver,' he argues."
I went to the MS store here in Bellevue today. Some of you may have seen me. But I doubt it.
I was pretty much of the same mind as most of you. Silverlight is dead. It's a dead end technology, and no one will develop with it.
Then today I saw a Windows Phone 7. I actually saw several models. They were actually really great. I was honestly ready for another piece of crap like every other Windows Mobile device I've ever seen. This was different.
Microsoft has done something insanely great (to steal a phrase from Steve Jobs) with Windows Phone 7. I can't truthfully declaim the phone series to anyone who asks. So as more people buy the phone (and they will), more applications will need to be developed for it. That means more Silverlight programmers. As the key synergy is between the phone and the PC, applications for the PC will also be built in Silverlight.
Sometimes when they are up against the wall with real competitors, Microsoft can produce good stuff. They are a day late, but this time they've brought a barrel full of extra dollars.
Especially the work on silverlight undermines the standardization of the web. Even with the Novell Moonlight plugin available for firefox on Linux, Silverlight support on anything but Windos/IE is flaky at best, so developers who care about their websites actually working cross-browser, cross-platform should avoid this technology.
Yes, I had gushing things to say about WP7 and I think it will lead to good things for Silverlight. That's my opinion after playing with actual phones today.
But is it just me or is there a really strong pro-Microsoft vibe here today? Has Microsoft really turned a corner and started offering something people want and need? Or are the MS astroturfers out in force?
Silverlight little applications are now trumpeted as native on WP7?
The absence of true native code in WP7 (C/C++) is a major problem, see, Apple has a clear edge in applications, they allow native code C/ObjC/C++ so people like Carmack can run Doom, companies like Korg can make true synthesizer DSP driven software and even FOSS people can compile and reuse their cherished code on iOS devices.
In the old days Bill Gates at least did know a thing or two about developers and what they need, it seams that MS is totally losing their vision, roots and edge by doing huge mistakes like dropping support for major native development inroads for their new mobile OS. So much for the Steve "triple developers" Ballmer's promises.
So they basically decided that it's best for them to have web developers out of control from adobe even if they cannot take said control. Good news.
However I still fail to be excited by HTML 5. IMO it fails spectacularly at anything they said it was good at. It creates huge privacy holes, makes it difficult to segregate components and still is not well suited to the mobile platorms. How do I activate an onHover() on my cell phone? Why does every page have a different idea on how large my screen is? On my desktop I have to zoom in if I want to read sites, because they can fix the font at 0.0001pt, on my cell phone I have to scroll horizontally every line. Let's forget that presentation should be decided by the client not the server, but at least why cannot they send a page formatted for *my* screen? With HTML5 they can know everything: where I am and my family tree, why can't they fucking look at how big my window is?
HTML5 is a travesty of a standard. I hope it never flies off as is. Unfortunately it probably will.
This should stop that proprietary HTML5 stuff getting a stranglehold on the web.
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Microsoft's competitors have produced better software than Microsoft for decades and it didn't do them any good on the desktop.
Microsoft needs to be much better than Android and iOS or they have already lost. "Good" isn't good enough.
What always baffled me was the 5 year gap between the release of .NET 1.0 and Silverlight 1.0. Remember when .NET 1.0 was released, everyone was asking, what is .NET? Part of the reason for the confusion was Microsoft's marketing department slathering the term on a variety of technologies, as they did with "Active" the previous decade. The other part of the reason was it didn't have a way to deploy to the browser. It seemed to me the main advantage of an interpretive run-time was to sandbox on the client. Instead, Microsoft built all these server-side technologies around .NET.
If Microsoft had released Silverlight back in 2002 -- i.e. if it had the small footprint, Mac compatibility, and easy browser install that Silverlight has now and that Flash had back then -- then not only might Silverlight have supplanted Flash, the momentum of millions of Microsoft developers jumping in that early might have forestalled or diminished the role of HTML5 today.
Not all of this is 20/20 hindsight. Browser install, to compete with Java Webstart, was a no-brainer. Then, if it had been a goal at that time of Microsoft to be the standard for all browsers, would have seen why Flash was succeeding (small footprint, Mac compatibility) and adopted those attributes for .NET client.
Microsoft today announced the release of version 5 of its world-beating Silverlight multimedia platform. As a replacement for Adobe's Flash, it is widely considered utterly superfluous and of no interest to anyone who could be found.
"We have a fabulous selection of content partners for Silverlight," announced Microsoft marketer Scott Guthrie on his blog today. "NBC for the Olympics, which delivered millions of new users to BitTorrent. The Democrat National Convention, which is fine because those Linux users are all Ron Paul weirdos anyway. It comes with rich frameworks, rich controls, rich networking support, a rich base class library, rich media support, oh God kill me now. My options are underwater, my resumé's a car crash, Google won't call me back. My life is an exercise in futility. I'm the walking dead, man. The walking dead."
Silverlight was created by Microsoft to leverage its desktop monopoly on Windows, to work off the tremendous sales and popularity of Vista. Flash is present on a pathetic 96% of all computers connected to the Internet, whereas Silverlight downloads are into the triple figures.
"But it's got DRM!" cried Guthrie. "Netflix loved it! And web developers love us too, after all we did for them with IE 6. Wait, come back! We'll put porn on it! Free porn! "
Similar Microsoft initiatives include its XPS replacement for Adobe PDF, its HD Photo replacement for JPEG photographs and its earlier Liquid Motion attempt to replace Flash. Also, that CD-ROM format Vista defaults to which no other computers can read.
In a Microsoft internal security sweep, Guthrie's own desktop was found to still be running Windows XP.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Microsoft announced Silverlight 5. Scheduled bata release it 1st half 2011. Announcement here.
OSX has nearly 15% share in the US.
It isn't 1999 anymore. What are you suggesting they would do anyways? Require a WP7 device to be plugged in for Windows to boot?
Have a look at Quake in Silverlight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2iS8LCAO8s
Can you really call yourself a proffesional if you are willingly pulling a IE6 again by writing for a format that is NOT universally supported?
Simple fact check, what runs on more environments? HTML5, Flash, Silverlight?
And no, opensource efforts that will always be playing catchup do NOT count.
You are once again tying your customers into a specific tech. Now I know who was building those IE6 only apps. It was you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Please Netflix.com, drop Silverlight and go with something that's open and cross platform.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.