Longhorn's Flash Killer? 784
SunSaw writes "Erin Joyce reports on internetnews.com that "Top developers at Microsoft are working on a new graphics and animation toolset for Longhorn (the next generation of Windows) that could spell trouble for Macromedia's popular Flash MX and Director MX animation tools".
Flash's yet-to-be-released competition from M$ is code named "Sparkle" but it wasn't demonstrated during Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles last week.
Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?"
Like Windows Media took over... (Score:4, Insightful)
Macromedia is already killing itself... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's another nail in the anti-trust coffin for Microsoft.
If (Score:5, Insightful)
Pluginless support for IE I'll bet ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not good at all for Flash.
beginning of the end... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Sparkle? Couldn't they come up with a better name? The blatant rip-off of not only ideas, but names, is insane.
Re:Actually, It'll Help Macromedia (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is this the end? (Score:3, Insightful)
Flash ain't (unfortunatly) goin' anywhere.
Macromedia is dying? (Score:3, Insightful)
please oh please oh please oh please (Score:3, Insightful)
God, I hope so. Flash is the absolute worst thing to hit the web since the blink tag. And no, stupid little animations don't make it better.
My browsing experience improved considerably the day I uninstalled (thanks for making it so non-easy, macromedia!) flash.
Now if only web designers around the world would realize that I go to their website for information, not to see their cute little flash animation intro. I know you're a frustrated movie/art student. Deal with it and let me get the info I need.
My only problem with this is that if Microsoft's integrated toolset takes off, then they'll make it completely impossible to remove.
Security (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, that sounds like a security hole just waiting to be exploited. I'm sure Microsoft will make some attempt to cover their butts, but they haven't had the greatest track record so far. Look at ActiveX - some unwitting user clicks a "yes" button on a popup, and suddenly a program can do whatever it wants to the machine. I know Microsoft has time to make it secure, and maybe they'll surprise me and do that, but I'm not holding my breath.
Just another POS (Score:2, Insightful)
Macromedia NEED competition (Score:5, Insightful)
My impression of working with Flash is that it is a product desperate to dis-associate it'self from the version 1-4 days, when it was a product only suitable for designers. The MX2004 product whilst lacking in stability provides a more robust (semi-strongly typed) scripting language.
The addition of scriptable components for managing text, media and sound makes it an almost credible application prototyping environment.
In order to get my work done I had to find myself a spare computer in the office that has Windows on it because Macromedia refuse to support anything other than Windows and Mac (badly). The fact that most web developers are running LAMP (Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL) seems to have evaded the Flash development team.
I suspect that this competition from microsoft is exactly what they need to encourage them to produce a Linux port of their flagship application. Previously Macromedia claimed that the Linux market was insignificant, however they will soon find that their windows market will shrink when the MS developers decide they prefer to script
A Linux port would be fresh grounds for Macromedia, and a welcome addition to the range of commercial software available for Linux. It would also be a good way for Macromedia to get some revenge on Microsoft who seem to be about to pull the carpet from beneath Macromedia's feet.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please, oh god, please (Score:5, Insightful)
if it doesn't work on a mac it's not going anywhere.
Re:Is this the end? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sigh. Flash is not as bad is its reputation - it can do a lot of very cool stuff. Certainly beats cookies for preserving state. It just gets misused, mostly by marketing departments.
That said, it *still* isn't searchable by robots or compliant with browser 'back' buttons. If Macromedia can't get that right over seven versions and ten years, what hope do MS have?
A little TOO early? (Score:5, Insightful)
3 years in the computing industry is an eternity. Thinking back to the year 2000, I was still using Windows 98, and had not long upgraded to a Slot-A Athlon 600MHz or something similar, and had just bought a brand spanking new Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO card.. most of that stuff is now obsolete, ESPECIALLY Windows 98!!
Nothing like jumping the gun a little eh? And as ever with any Microsoft product, I won't hold my breath.
Re:Open Flash source (Score:1, Insightful)
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/
I noticed it it the API of the SDK (Score:3, Insightful)
It looked like a flash replacement and I guess I was right.
attacking Open Source again (Score:5, Insightful)
Then eventually they will cut support to Mac or make it substandard compared to the Windows version.
Business as usual.
And worse of it all - most people will probably swallow this as well. So sad people don't stand for anything anymore.
Don't brush this aside. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's lots of Flash, and Linux runs it flawlessly. What happens if Sparkle starts to displace Flash as the weapon-of-choice for webmasters who think they can't get it all done with ordinary HTML? There are sites out there that require Flash. Yes, it's annoying, and yes, we'd prefer to see it done right. But will that ever-popular dude, Joe Sixpack, care? All he'll know is that his favorite website requires Sparkle, and there's no Sparkle for Linux or Mac, so he'll stick with Windows.
Flash may be used in annoying ways but its availability on Linux is one of Linux's strengths as a desktop operating system.
Re:Is this the end? (Score:2, Insightful)
We know now how successful MSN was at putting AOL out of business, right? Not even after MS made clicking on abuot any button in new Windows install make you sign up for an MSN account.
AOL IS doomed, but not because of MSN.
Re:Let Macromedia die! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:You mean in only 3 to 4 years, Microsoft will . (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Did you trash your Macromedia Dreamweaver when you first read the press release on FrontPage? The problem is that Sparkle will have vastly different goals than Flash just like FrontPage had vastly different goals than Dreamweaver.
Re: Every time, the same whine (Score:5, Insightful)
I will agree that a lot of crappy stuff has been done in Flash. There's also a lot of crappy books/webpages/slashdot posts that have been written, but I'm not about to propose getting rid of the alphabet so that it doesn't happen again.
There are some things for which the interactive, vector-based, flash delivered materials are best. Something like technial illustrations on a website would be a perfect example, ones that can be cross linked and are zoomable. (if you did it in static files, you'd need to render a bunch of different resolutions. if you did it as PDF, you don't get the same interactivity)
And whether you like it or not, a LOT of people learn better by smaller, bite sized bits of information, rather than by large text blocks that they need to plow through.
There is also this idea that presentation is totally useless. For many things it isn't the foremost important thing, but if you totally dislike having content delivered to you with somebody else's presentation applied, you'd better:
I don't care if it is flash or svg or whatever. The reason it popped up is because there are people who legitimately can use this technology. If you aren't one of them, fine. But don't assume that because you don't find it useful, then nobody should.
The real flash killer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:attacking Open Source again (Score:2, Insightful)
They won't port anything until Linux starts showing up on millions of desktops, where there would be an audience feasibly large enough to sell software to.
Re:Like Windows Media took over... (Score:3, Insightful)
Almost every DVD Player supports Windows Media.
Windows Media is (together with Real Media) the most common format for streaming.
Re:Please, oh god, please (Score:5, Insightful)
hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
"I'm sorry, the plug-in you tried to install is not compatible with this operating system's beleif that all programs must be made by Microsoft. Please try Sparkle instead."
On a serios note, how is this not anti-competitive? I guess Macromedia can look for a nice payout once this has been implemented.
So, no new features? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me ask you this: does that mean any new feature added in Windows is now an anti-trust violation? Doesn't that seem a little harsh?
Or perhaps you are just objecting to the fact that Macromedia already has similar capabilities. The problem is, just about any feature you add to an OS today has been done by someone before. Does that mean that the OS must be stagnant?
It's not as though Macromedia has the patent on vector-based graphics...
Sparkle, VBScript, Longhorn and Macromedia (Score:4, Insightful)
Firstly, the question must be asked of many things that MS is planning on including in Longhorn: Why are they doing this? Why are they adding in a Flash killing, Windows only Technology, and why are they adding an Office/Mail "security" feature that only works on Windows? The answer should be as obvious as the sky is blue: They want to kill off the competition. This should really, after all these years of bone crushing MS failures and successes in killing off alternatives, be blindingly obvious.
The next question is whether it will succede. That is anyone's guess. I tend to look at the last few times MS has attempted to intoduce MS only technologies in the browser, such as VBScript (instead of the ECMAScript compatible JScript), ActiveX (which only ended up with providing plug-in developers extra work into porting to Mac and Mozilla) and others. There is a very good chance that Sparkle will just fall flat on it's face as the millions of Flash developers will not suddenly switch over to something that will only work in one browser, especially after those same developers spent fucking years getting all their html stuff to work in all browsers.
On the other hand, Macromedia has a historical record of making catastrophically bad user interfaces for their products and has a knack of having good luck shots along with a host of bad decisions. They neglected Freehand for ages, for instance, only to have to rush like mad in a catch up game with Illustrator a couple of years down the road. Their latest product activation spree has irritated more than one developer.
There is a final line to this: With both Adobe and Macromedia kissing Microsoft's backside and concentrating most of their efforts on Windows at the expense of the Macintosh, they might have done something that they will highly regret in the future when Microsoft tries to kill both of them off. They might then realise that never ending price rises and neglecting their original markets was a costly mistake.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! (Score:2, Insightful)
Is this the beginning of the end for Macromedia?
I'm sick of people freaking out whenever Microsoft announces something. These are only ANNOUNCEMENTS - who knows whether there's anything behind them, what they'll eventually release, how good it will be, etc.
Longhorn is years away, and yet every little piece of magic it will supposedly contain is breathlessly reported. How fortunate they are that all they have to do is say "We're going to do these magnificent things", and so many people jump right on it and assume it's true? As far as I can tell, whatever else happens in a couple of years Microsoft will still be the big boy on the block, will still release shitty, buggy software, will still be playing catch up to Apple on features, and will still be telling everyone how much better their lives will be when they buy yet another Microsoft upgrade.
So settle down people.
Re:What isn't MS bundling into Longhorn? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've read some things about the registry, and I think I would consider it a good idea to have it distributed in multiple files. However, the statement says it will be distributed across the filesystem in multiple directories, not neccesarily in files (given their new "our filesystem is a database" idea).
It wouldn't surprise me if this would mostly be meant to prevent copying it, so it will be very hard to copy your system to a new hard drive.
But on the other hand, surely they will still be compatible with the old interface, so old programs can still run. And that means that all the weak points will stay right where they are.
Anyway, I'm not wasting more time on this, it will not come out before 2006 anyway.
Re:Please, oh god, please (Score:3, Insightful)
Translating between CPU architectures results in code much less efficient than the original. You have more registers on the RISC, and no way to know exactly which of them are meaningful at most points of the code, so you have to treat them all as if they all are. Plus, flag semantics are slightly different so you have to patch up the difference inside what you want to be really efficient inner loops (sucks cycles bigtime.) Things like the threading APIs will NOT match, because the registers are different, so you end up with speed similar to an emulation anyway.
Re:Sparkle will tank (Score:1, Insightful)
Ok, that was a worst case scenario that was ignores the cross browser/platform market totally but is it impossible? Macromedia is going to have to stay on its toes for a while.
Re:Like Windows Media took over... (Score:3, Insightful)
Streamming: WM and Real. Where's MPEG4? Yes, there are also MPEG4-Streams, but compared to WM and Real, there are only a few MPEG4-Streams.
DVD Players: WMA (sometimes even WMV) is often supported besides MPEG1/2. Compare that to the numbre of DVD Players that support MPEG4 (AAC, DivX,...).
And so on.
See the difference? WM (WMA or WMV) is almost everywhere. WM didn't take over in a particular market. True, but WM is waayy stronger in the overall market than eg. MPEG4.
Do I like that situation? No. Is it reality? Yes.