Microsoft Prefers Flash To Silverlight 306
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.'"
Dog food? (Score:3, Insightful)
Silverlight is insignificant (Score:3, Insightful)
Most sites making commercials will probably stay with Flash and animated images as a backup unless Silverlight allows them to create yet more annoying CPU-demanding commercials.
re-development cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Give it some time before making these stupid accusations. Just because they themselves have existing code and developers doesn't mean they are suggesting new development elsewhere shouldn't use the technology and be "ahead of the curve". I'm not saying silverlight is better - just that MS's lack of use of it doesn't suggest anything at this point in time.
Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
The last thing they want is people going "wtf, microsofts site is broken!" because they don't realize its silverlight.
Re:re-development cost (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you never heard of Netscape?>
MS will simply work on the technology until they are ready to push it out as part of IE. Then, one update, it goes live to all of the IE users they can push it to. They already have critical mass, they only have to flip that switch. You have to remember MS does not move on a dime. They are slower and more methodical in their market take overs. They have time and money on their side. And they normally get what they want.
They will probably have all (or most) of their websites with a silverlight version running before they flip that switch. Then, they will push it out and the new experience will start. But, they will want that experience to be noticeably *better* before they do it.
InnerWeb
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:4, Insightful)
Forgive me, I will wait until the FOSS community gets a chance to vet the code first. In the mean time, as the title says, Silverlight is insignificant and irrelevant.
Perfect Slashdot Article (Score:5, Insightful)
A perfect blurb for Slashdot. Bashes Microsoft. Claims competition is a "controversy." Mixes up pronouns. Makes up impressive sounding terminology like "the rich internet market." Shocked that different parts of a megacorporation uses different toolsets. Has no clue or firmly ignores that management of Microsoft departments are as segmented as possible for profit reasons, antitrust reasons and at the demand of the marketplace. Even gets the Microsoft-haters like me to go WTF?! and post a reply, driving up page hits.
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:3, Insightful)
IMO, it should really have worked the way rolling out projects from Project Builder on NeXT/Open Step worked - only the relevant libraries/DLL's for your application were included in the final build of your application, for whatever platform it was for (so releases could be just a few Kb - not requiring a separate 60+ MB install of a common runtime environment).
When it comes to client side application development,
Still, most things that can be done in either - with the exception of video - can be done in DHTML+Canvas on Firefox(/Gecko) and Safari(/Webkit) - and to a lesser degree, IE7. If Microsoft supported standards anywhere near as well as Mozilla has done it wouldn't be a big issue. I also wish Apple had put just slightly more work in to Canvas (text placement, anyone?). Kudos to the Mozilla team for not only implementing it, but providing some top class documentation for it.
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?).
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:re-development cost (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't live in the "please install this plugin" era anymore. That time is over. Most people have never, ever installed a plug-in and the rest hasn't done so since the last decade or so.
Microsoft at the moment doesn't have a choice but to provide a website with Flash instead of Silverlight for their animations, the best they could do is create a parallel website supporting/showcasing Silverlight. And that will certainly be a huge operation. Plus the headaches of keeping the two versions in sync...
Re:It's only a matter of time.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Until then I guess I'll just have to make do without the undoubtedly awesome hardrock cafe memoribilia website. Undoubtedly, because their RL establishments are just so great...
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:3, Insightful)
Why the wait?
Flex is open source. The SWF file format is an open specification.
This story is idiotic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is a huge company with dozens of divisions, and thousands of teams. Development cycles for a company like this can last years. Don't expect them to adopt some new technology like silverlight on every single public site they posess in a heartbeat.
Moreover, just suggesting that they would re-write an existing portal (that may not even really need SL technology) simply because a new technology came out makes no sense. Programmer time is expensive, so what business justification do you have spending money to rebuild a portal that is functioning just fine in the first place?
MS does stupid shit that they deserver to be bashed for, such as the whole Open XML fiasco. Posting stories like this just destroys the sites credibility, and makes look like you engage in mindless MS bashing, rather than really looking at issues that are critical to tech savy people.
It's the sloppiness + the abusiveness. (Score:5, Insightful)
At least the first 2 versions of Microsoft products usually have very severe bugs. For example, Windows XP and Windows XP SP1, and Windows Vista and Windows Vista SP1 were or are full of grief for administrators.
Customers don't want to be beta testers for Microsoft, any longer.
After Microsoft has forced a significant number of its less knowledgeable users to install Silverlight, Microsoft salesmen will begin talking about "significant market share", if the past is any guide.
"I think Flash has just gone too far down the wrong route, as application development in it seems like a hack." My experience with Macromedia is that it was always a sloppy company. Unforunately, Adobe management seems to be malfunctioning recently.
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why Microsoft is introducing Silverlight. Flash is threatening to become an OS-independent application platform which could make Windows irrelevant.
Re:This story is idiotic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainely not. But between your figure and no exposure at all (almost), there is some room, and it looks odd that did not really start some sort of significant promotion for their technology (unless I missed it).
Moreover, just suggesting that they would re-write an existing portal (that may not even really need SL technology) simply because a new technology came out makes no sense
They did that "non-sense" (in a technical point of view) in the past. Just look at the hotmail migration (attempt) on windows server for example. If you want your technology to get exposure, you need to show it in action on realife applications. Microsoft has the horsepower to do that sort of things very quickly and deeply, to the contrary of many others.
It looks strange to me because I've little doubt that the client-rich application's future is closer to FLEX/SL than the present web "standards".
Re:dilbert.com (Score:3, Insightful)
They, like the Gods, will do as they will.
Re:This story is idiotic. (Score:1, Insightful)
Yet Microsoft has insisted that everyone rewrite, or add significant maintenance and testing cycles, to websites when each new version of IE comes out that doesn't support standards.
Re:This story is idiotic. (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, lets not forget that SL is new. v1.0 may be a few years old, but it's nowhere near as easy to use as 2.0 is supposed to be, and 2.0 isn't actually out yet. With 2.0 you can code behind SL UI's just like you can code behind an ASPX page, in VS2008, so it will (in theory) be much more accessible.
Frankly, though, I doubt even MS is expecting Silverlight to completely replace Flash -- from what I've seen, it's just too much overhead for some of the simple things. The whole point of Silverlight is to do really complex applications approaching the feature-richness of a Forms application, delivered over the web.
Re:This story is idiotic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:4, Insightful)
The reality is that most stores cater to the 85-90% of the market they are in; the rest are marginalized simply because you can't make enough money on them - too much support and inventory costs to support everyone and that leaves the little niche markets for small companies.
When you're a big company, you simply cannot look to take on every small niche - you will not survive. So you live on the big chunks of the market.
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:3, Insightful)
This would be the same Adobe that doesn't have 64-bit flash yet? on any platform! Whose linux flash support even in 32-bit is way behind the times?
If there was ever a platform that Microsoft had a real chance of overtaking, Flash would be it. If sliverlight/moonlight can get an installed base it has a real chance of being a flash killer.
And considering windows update just prompted me to try the new 'silverlight' beta version, MS *IS* putting the effort in to use silverlight on their own sites, and putting it in places where it will get installed by a LOT of people.
If they can co-exist with flash on a site like youtube for 64-bit... that would be a real coup for Microsoft.
Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:1, Insightful)
Photoshop Express [photoshop.com]
Fotoflexer [fotoflexer.com]
Buzzword [buzzword.com]
SlideRocket [sliderocket.com]
Premiere Express [mtv.com]
Goowy [goowy.com]
Note the absence of *a single* significant Silverlight application.
Re:This story is idiotic. (Score:4, Insightful)
Internally, I imagine many people at Microsoft knew that Silverlight was coming, and had access to the team behind it. The issue of 'turning the ship' is just an excuse. Internal communication may be terrible, but major new products should be trumpeted far and wide in a company like Microsoft.
Imagine the impact of an entirely Silverlight-based Microsoft site on launch day, from their front page through to MSDN. That would highlight the new web platform amazingly well, greatly increase the uptake (every visitor would choose to download it or view old Flash content, perhaps) and present a solid, unified front from the entire company.
The only justification required for rewriting their web presence is simply this - do they want Silverlight to succeed or not? Right now people can point to Microsoft's own site and argue with some justification that Microsoft has no faith in their own product. It's just as bad as if they were hosting their site on Linux servers.
It's not just a 'dog-fooding' thing either. It's also advertising without buying ad space. How will Silverlight pick up unless people know about it? One way for people to find out is to pay for ads, another is to lead by example and show how it's better. Lead the web developers and the users will follow.
It would've been a massive undertaking and expensive, so I can see why few would advocate it. It would also have been a massive statement about the company really getting behind their new web platform, and an excellent example of the power of Silverlight.
A missed opportunity, unfortunately.