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Microsoft's SkyDrive Drops Silverlight

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-thats-not-good dept.

mikejuk writes "Microsoft's SkyDrive, a web service that provides cloud storage for end user files, has just acquired a revamped user interface — and it is HTML5 based. Yes, another Microsoft website has dropped Silverlight. How can Microsoft expect independent developers to base their future on Silverlight when Microsoft itself is abandoning it like a sinking ship? Whatever happened to 'eating your own dog food'? It seems that now Microsoft would rather eat dog food made elsewhere..."

14 of 358 comments (clear)

  1. MS hate by cgeys · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So Microsoft starts using standards compliant HTML5 instead of Silverlight on their sites and you bash them for it? Seriously?

    And regardless, HTML5 was nowhere to be seen when Silverlight came out. It was needed back then, if only as a competitor for Flash. Have you noticed Silverlight hasn't even had the same security concerns and exploits as Flash?

    This is a good thing from Microsoft, not bad. Stop bashing them for everything they do, even if its a good thing.

    1. Re:MS hate by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is a perfect example of "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

      Oh, and typical Slashdot bullshit :)

    2. Re:MS hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      True. It's more of them "using the appropriate tool for the job". Silverlight might have other / better uses elsewhere, not a Web UI, what with tools like HTML 5 and CSS3. This is good news.

    3. Re:MS hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      No one other than those 23.6 million subscribers of Netflix...

    4. Re:MS hate by ron_ivi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > So Microsoft starts using standards compliant HTML5 instead of Silverlight on their sites and you bash them for it? Seriously?

      No, we bash them for pushing one technology on their customers for the sake of getting them locked in, while internally they know those technologies suck and they use better stuff for themselves. The way Bing uses Hadoop is another example. And the way they're soon to be a big postgres shop (skype) yet another.

      They know what the right technologies are. But they keep selling their developers on other stuff.

    5. Re:MS hate by Kamiza+Ikioi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How is this an example of "damned if they do, damned if they don't"? Microsoft made Silverlight, pushed a lot of sites to use it at the displeasure of many (Netflix), now they are dropping support?

      This is rather an example of MS making crap, MS pushing crap, and MS not being able to support their own crap, but still wanting everyone to use it. That's not damned if you do or don't, that's just everyone saying "It sucks, stop pushing it when you can't even use it."

      I.E. - Windows Vista

      --
      I8-D
    6. Re:MS hate by denis-The-menace · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, there is no hate.

      It's more of a Ha-Ha http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo to the developers that dared to try to make $ on a MS technology.

      Almost every company that has worked with MS has gotten stabbed in the back.

      --
      Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
    7. Re:MS hate by Fjandr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Captive audience for PC users. It made their service worse, an I stopped using it on a PC unless I had no other choice.

      I will rejoice when Silverlight dies the death it deserves.

    8. Re:MS hate by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Investing in MS technologies has always been foolhardy. This is just one more episode in a long history of them pulling the rug from beneath their customers' feet in order to make them buy yet another full line of "new" software development tools. It has happened before, it will happen again. It's a suckers' game, and it's baffling how so many people fall into it again and again, especially in the presence of a large, diverse and stable palette of FOSS development tools that evolve in a generally orderly and predictable fashion. Has this ever happened to Perl, Python, PHP, or Ruby developers?.

    9. Re:MS hate by node+3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, there is no hate.

      Against MS?

      It's more of a Ha-Ha to the developers that dared to try to make $ on a MS technology.

      A "Ha-Ha" motivated by hatred towards MS.

      Almost every company that has worked with MS has gotten stabbed in the back.

      More MS hate.

      and your sig

      Microsoft: Making "just good enough" products to keep people from using "Good" or "Great" products since 95'

      More MS hate.

    10. Re:MS hate by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "In fact at this point, heavily investing in any MS-technologies without hedging (such as DirectX while the rest of the mobile world is OpenGLES 2.x) is just daft."

      Have you worked in I.T. in a corporate level (I am taking +1,000 employees)? I am not insinuating you have not or implying anything, but there is huge pressure to lower costs and reduce the amount of platforms and software. If you are a bank for example and buy out several other companies and each company had 3 programs then you have 6 - 9 programs that all do the same thing!

      So you need to pick one. Now imagine yourself 12 years in the past in a server room, with Novel Netware, Bryon Vines, Unixware, Solaris, VMS, OS/2 eComstation, and this new product called Windows NT Server, supporting WordPerfect, MS Word, Novel Groupwise, Lotus Notes, and Outlook for the 2,000 users. You need to upgrade all this to be Y2k compliant and which platform will you chose? Which standard?

      Corporate America chose Microsoft. They are a monopoly and it is important to use whatever everyone else is using. That same server room I was in 12 years ago is an all MS shop today. These same shops use silverlight and .NET are the same shops do not want to go back to Unix and OpenGL. It was a smart move to support one company, one standard, one way of doing things and having IT trained in just one company.

      However, thankfully the internet and HTML 5 is freeing us of this, but causing chaos and headaches from these same companies. Add to tablets, phones, and IPads and it makes sense. Silverlight and other MS technologies will be a round for a very long long time, much like IBM mainframe software being run today in emulators from 30 years ago. If I had a time machine and could go 20 years into the future I would bet you IE 6 will still be run in emulator terminals running these old win32 intranet apps.

      These users should be outraged, and expect support. The whole reason for using it was a hedge agaisn't using something that would go out of business or become obsolete or irrelevant. MS is a good bet to make as it sets the standards for corporate America. ... it is a different world than playing around at home or in a small business.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    11. Re:MS hate by dhavleak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Microsoft made Silverlight, pushed a lot of sites to use it at the displeasure of many (Netflix), now they are dropping support?

      1. How did Microsoft "push" Netflix?
      2. When did Microsoft "drop support" for Silverlight?

  2. They don't by geoffrobinson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "How can Microsoft expect independent developers to base their future on Silverlight when Microsoft itself is abandoning it like a sinking ship?"

    They don't expect people to base their future on Silverlight. Why would anyone think that at this point?

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
  3. Netflix by gatzby3jr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now all we need is Netflix to abandon Silverlight...