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Microsoft

Microsoft Prefers Flash To Silverlight 306

Posted by CmdrTaco from the recoding-takes-time dept.
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.'"
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Microsoft Prefers Flash To Silverlight More

Microsoft Prefers Flash To Silverlight

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  • Dog food? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig.hogger@gmail ... m minus caffeine> on Saturday May 10, 2008 @09:42AM (#23360808) Journal
    Who ever said something about dog food and eating it???

    • This story is idiotic. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @11:49AM (#23361738) Journal
      I am going to come right out and say, whoever posted this story was an idiot. (notice they posted it anon..)

      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.

      • Re:This story is idiotic. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by herve_masson ( 104332 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @12:46PM (#23362164)
        Don't expect them to adopt some new technology like silverlight on every single public site they posess in a heartbeat

        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: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by KutuluWare ( 791333 )

          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).

          You sort-of missed it. There are portions of their site that are being tested with Silverlight, such as their new MSDN downloads area. They are beta tests, so you only see them if you're one of the random users that gets prompted to participate while using the production site, but they do exist. Also, not that this is a huge plus for SL but it's integrated heavily into the Vista UI already.

          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

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by shutdown -p now ( 807394 )

            Also, lets not forget that SL is new. v1.0 may be a few years old
            Silverlight 1.0 was released in September 2007. It's not even a year old.

      • Re:This story is idiotic. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by GaryPatterson ( 852699 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @08:51PM (#23365870)
        I agree with you, except to say that this is a huge missed opportunity for Microsoft.

        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.

  • Silverlight is insignificant (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Z00L00K ( 682162 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @09:43AM (#23360810) Homepage Journal
    Silverlight is insignificant as a technology as long as it exists only for Windows, and even then it will be adopted by a very limited amount of web sites.

    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:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:5, Informative)

      by modmans2ndcoming ( 929661 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @09:48AM (#23360860)
      uhhh.... news flash, there is an OS X and Linux runtime.

      • Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:4, Insightful)

        by canuck57 ( 662392 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:09AM (#23361050)

        uhhh.... news flash, there is an OS X and Linux runtime.

        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.

      • Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:5, Informative)

        by Gavagai80 ( 1275204 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:15AM (#23361080) Homepage
        Newsflash: getting silverlight (moonlight) to actually install on Linux takes a team of experts, and even if you manage that it'll fail on most pages. It's no more accurate to say that there's a silverlight for linux than it is to say that all windows programs run in linux thanks to wine.
        • I second that statement. I'm not a dumb guy by most standards, and I found the install to be problematic, even using Windows and Firefox. I still haven't gotten it to work properly on my PC at work. Mind you, I haven't tried very hard. (Click here... restart browser... meh... didn't work. Oh well.)

          I actually tried to get the *nix runtime working, and it's definitely not something the average user could do at this point. (Even the averate Linux user)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Serapth ( 643581 )

      Because Silverlight-based applications are cross-platform, they run in most modern Web browsers, including the following:

      Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0 Beta

      Mozilla Firefox versions 1.5 and 2.0

      Apple Safari version 2.0 and 3.0 Beta.

      Currently it runs on Windows and Mac, with the Mono team apparently having a Silverlight port already up and running. Its not 100% cross platform, but its a hell of alot better then most previous Microsoft technologies. You have to keep in mind the technol
    • Silverlight runs fine on my PowerPC Mac.

    • Re:Silverlight is insignificant (Score:5, Insightful)

      by innerweb ( 721995 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:06AM (#23361036)

      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, Informative)

        by gbjbaanb ( 229885 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:39AM (#23361254)
        I'm sure silverlight is quite a good technology.

        but who cares, they turned me off it when I kept getting popups asking if I wanted to install it, am I sure I don't, no really we think you should. oh ok, I'll ask again next time you visit any page in case you've changed your mind.

        I installed it in the end just to shut the damn thing up, and even then it refused to install. I almost cried with the frustration! The CIA could use this technique to get their terrorist suspects to talk.

        MS doesn't often plan their takeover of markets, someone someehere in the depths of MS's vast ranks of development makes something cool, others within MS get to hear of it, its attracts some takeup,, and then everone in MS thinks that becuase they like it, you will too. And if you don't like it - tough, as they want you to have it so it becomes ubiqutous enough that they can use it everywhere without worrying about it. Hence the push to have silverlight installed everywhere.

        Of course, that's the old way of MS planning. Now, someone at MS decides they can make money from it/increase market share/dominate a market, and so they tell everyone at MS to push it everywhere. It often doesn't work - look at .net and how much takeup they have there from the Office, Windows and now the Visual Studio teams. But you, as a MS consumer, still get the marketing message pushed down your throat like it or not.

        BTW, they cannot 'flip the switch' and have you have it, they'd get sued. Again. That's why you have to opt-in to silverlight. Whether you want it or not.

  • re-development cost (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shird ( 566377 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @09:44AM (#23360830) Homepage Journal
    It's a bit of a no-brainer - MS still has to pay for development somehow. They have existing flash code and developers, why would they re-write and re-train?

    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.

    • Re:re-development cost (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dotancohen ( 1015143 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @09:53AM (#23360912) Homepage

      It's a bit of a no-brainer - MS still has to pay for development somehow. They have existing flash code and developers, why would they re-write and re-train?
      That, and the fact that Silverlight won't run on their developers' Ubuntu boxen. The top of the pyramid may be crap, but the bottom is still pretty sharp from what I understand.

    • Re:re-development cost (Score:5, Funny)

      by mysticgoat ( 582871 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:16AM (#23361098) Homepage Journal

      I didn't realize that Microsoft still had developers. I sort of thought that Vista and Office 2007 demonstrated that all the developers had exercised their stock options and gone on to more interesting projects with Google, IBM, and Yahoo.

      Um, wasn't that what the Yahoo deal was really all about? Ballmer trying to reclaim some of his developers developers developers?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BenoitRen ( 998927 )

      They have existing flash code and developers, why would they re-write and re-train?

      To promote their product?

      Give it some time before making these stupid accusations.

      Silverlight has been released more than a year ago already. They have had quite some time already, especially for a company with massive resources.

      • The Silverlight released a year ago was the 1.0 version, which frankly was mostly a prototype of the basic animation system and the Javascript/AJAX integration. You couldn't build YouTube on Silverlight 1.0.

        The 1.1/2.0 Alpha release isn't officially released yet, it's still an alpha/developer preview version. 2.0 is due to be released "late summer."

        Frankly, Microsoft can't even really begin to develop Silverlight applications, except the most basic, at this point. This article is just normal Slashdot flameb

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wvmarle ( 1070040 )
      Virtually no-one has Silverlight installed, while virtually anyone has Flash installed. Now the MS web-site is product support, advertising, etc. MS may be crazy, but they are not so stupid as to alienate the vast majority of the Internet population by demanding a specific plug-in to be installed just for their website.
      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.
      Mi
      • True, but they could always put out Silverlight via Windows Update (although some users would be annoyed, most wouldn't even notice).
    • I am somehow puzzled by the lack of presence of real life (read: useful) silverlight applets. I would expect microsoft to start using it extensively at this point, because we're hearing about silverlight for quite some time now.

      As a développer, I was really hoping some good news when they started this stuff. I was looking forward to get a truly appropriate alternative for the web craps on the rich client front, and this is really disapointing so far. It is going to take much more than a "mine sweeper", [silverlight.net]

  • Meh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Adambomb ( 118938 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @09:45AM (#23360836) Journal
    Seems more like they're taking their time on this one. More than likely, they'll wait long enough to include it as a default update push and once its ubiquitous on their platform THEN go ahead with changing across their sites. Of course, they'd have to be careful to avoid another anti-trust row.

    The last thing they want is people going "wtf, microsofts site is broken!" because they don't realize its silverlight.

    • Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 10, 2008 @09:56AM (#23360938)

      The last thing they want is people going "wtf, microsofts site is broken!"

      Yes, because Microsoft products are so insanely reliable, so robust, so rock-solid, that Microsoft could in no way afford to create the perception that perhaps something of theirs is broken. It would ruin them, I tell you!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Serapth ( 643581 )
      [i]Seems more like they're taking their time on this one. More than likely, they'll wait long enough to include it as a default update push and once its ubiquitous on their platform THEN go ahead with changing across their sites. [/i] Actually they are slowing rolling updates out. If you have Silverlight installed, you will get a pop up window asking if you would like to try out the new Silverlight version instead. I know for a fact Download Center has a Silverlight beta ( which btw, is much improved ) a
    • With Apple's market share growing as fast as it does (even in corporate environments) there's also the question of whether using Silverlight before all platforms have solid support for it is a good idea at all. Microsoft is going to have a hard time convincing companies that access their site from a non-Windows environment to switch to Windows using nothing but a frame that says "Download the Silverlight client for Windows XP and Vista to watch this content".
      • It's easy to grow starting from a base of
        On the other hand, MS could follow Apple's lead and sneak Siverlight in as a default "updated" like Apple did with Safari. But that would be unethical (unless your company starts with an "A").
        • I'm talking about growth, not absolute sales numbers. Apple's numbers grow faster than the computer market does; that's what "Apple's market share grows" means. Apple's share of the pie, compared with the whole pie, grows. Apple occupies bits of the market that were previously occupied by someone else. Where Apple started from is irrelevant. People don't buy from a company because the company's market share isnt in equilibrium with all other companies' market shares.

          As for the default update thing: That s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Idaho ( 12907 )

      The last thing they want is people going "wtf, microsofts site is broken!"

      I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there, and will make my point by quoting someone's post in a reddit thread [reddit.com] (that's about MSDN search, or rather the MSDN website in general, sucking):

      The problem is with your assumption that Microsoft cares about their web site. They don't. They wish that it didn't exist and that they didn't have to take care of it. They wish the internet didn't exist, and that if you want to talk to other people you use Microsoft software and a Microsoft proprietary protocol.
      They do this all the time. Old links in old Microsoft software to Microsoft's website no longer work because they keep moving things. MSDN search is broken and awful.

      It appears that Microsoft's web site is being maintained by amateurs, rather than a huge corporation whom you would hope know what they are doing. I would posit that you should never ascribe to incompetence that which can be more completely explained by malice.

      The same principle probably can be applied to their use of Flash.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mex ( 191941 )
      The last thing they want is people going "wtf, microsofts site is broken!" because they don't realize its silverlight.

      Actually, Microsoft's site IS broken, silverlight or no. Whenever you visit it with Opera browser, columns keep jumping all over the place, many buttons don't work, tables are all out of whack...

      Not that I go there often but I happened to visit a couple of days ago and, well, it's crap.
  • Companies like to believe in their brand. There's nothing wrong with it and it would be bad for marketing if you didn't. MS produces great products as much as they do a few bad ones. In any case, I think they just need to put more thought into the the software and services they create. They have to realize that just because they make it doesn't mean people will use it (*cough* especially when users get to choose to use it or not).

    Which is why I think the schema to buy more web-users by purchasing Yahoo is a

  • Logical (Score:2, Redundant)

    by tsa ( 15680 )
    Isn't it logical to use Flash since almost nobody has Silverlight yet? MS needs people to be able to view their webpages, so it can sell its products.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )
      I like the tv commercial advertising television sets...
      They show you example images of how great the set they're trying to advertise is supposed to look, but its being displayed on your existing set and will therefore never look any better than what you currently have.
  • I know I would...

  • the obvious (Score:5, Funny)

    by dotancohen ( 1015143 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @09:51AM (#23360892) Homepage

    Microsoft Prefers Flash To Silverlight
    Who doesn't?
    • Me. I hate them both equally.

    • Microsoft Prefers Flash To Silverlight

      Who doesn't?
      ROCK == HARDPLACE

  • JavaFX.com is Java-free (Score:5, Informative)

    by ewg ( 158266 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:00AM (#23360970)

    JavaFX.com [javafx.com] uses JavaScript and QuickTime to promote the benefits of JavaFX. No JVM needed.

    (Of course, you still have to visit the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] for an introduction in context.)

    • Um, no (Score:3, Informative)

      by Reality Master 201 ( 578873 )
      From the "JavaFX Technology Overview" section of the JavaFX.com website:

      Built on Java. JavaFX is not starting from scratch; it is built on the Java platform (Java SE and Java ME) and leverages the power and capabilities of the Java platform. It also extends the Java platform to deliver on the original promise of client-side Java.


      Unless by "No JVM needed," you mean "No JVM needed apart from an already installed JVM."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ewg ( 158266 )
        I'm referring the promotional website, not to the JavaFX technology itself.

        JavaFX itself is definitely Java-based, designed to leverage the Java already installed, Sun hopes, on your computer, phone, or Blu-ray player.

        However JavaFX.com the website is Java-free.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Wow. JavaScript AND QuickTime? I think I would rather be stabbed in the face. No, wait; I KNOW I would rather be stabbed in the face. If only they could have figured out a way to add Real to the equation, perhaps embedding it all in a PDF. Now THAT would have been impressive. Horribly, horribly impressive.
  • Why is Microsoft persuing 2D for the web and not 3D for the web? Adobe has both - Flash for 2D, Shockwave for 3D - but Adobe only aggressively markets Flash. Shockwave is the defacto platform for 3D only because nobody else is competing there. Microsoft has tons of expertise in 3D that Adobe doesn't. They write DirectX, play a large part in deciding the capabilities of graphics cards, and co-designed and market the Xbox. Microsoft might never be able to pry the 2D web market away from Adobe, but if MS

    • Re:Why not 3D for the web? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dragonshed ( 206590 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @11:30AM (#23361606)
      Silverlight will have 3D eventually. The biggest problem to get around is supporting hardware acceleration equally across the targeted platforms.

      I spoke with one of the devs working on SL, and he told me the issue is gaining access to the accelerated rendering devices. Most if not all browsers don't let plugins create a 3d surface (Maybe you can do this with ActiveX in IE *shrug*), so it'll involve a fair amount of hackery to get this working uniformly on all their targeted platforms. There are some interesting features planned post 2.0, but thats for Microsoft to divulge when they're ready.

      It's interesting (but not surprising) that noone here pointed out that flash is far superior to silverlight 1.0 and 1.0 is the only version that allows sites to go live to end users.

      For those who don't know, 1.0 is essentially a 2d-and-video compositor with a relatively nice API, but programable only using javascript, which depending on what you're doing can get really slow really fast.

      Actionscript is much faster than javascript, and with flex is much easier to use imo. But (again imo) C# trumps both.

      Silverlight 2.0 is in beta, with beta 2 coming sometime soon, and that's the tech most MS/C# web developers are interested in using. A cut down .NET runtime with relevant APIs and zero fat. The install footprint is a little over 4megs and thats not likely to change much until version.next.

      If java applets were seemless with a 4meg footprint that installs in 20 seconds, it would've stolen the application programming market long ago. Flash has steadily gotten better instead, but again, I think C# is better :)

      Flame on.
      -DS

  • It's only a matter of time.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TomHandy ( 578620 ) <(tomhandy) (at) (gmail.com)> on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:04AM (#23361008)
    I'm pretty sure I read that Microsoft is in the middle of migrating over to Silverlight for most of their sites, since it is one of their biggest platforms for promoting and getting people to install it. I think the same article said the Olympics site was also going to be a big showcase for Silverlight.

    I have to admit, some of the Silverlight sites I've seen so far have actually been kind of cool - the one that sticks out to me is the Hard Rock Memorabilia site at http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/ [hardrock.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by adamofgreyskull ( 640712 )
      I can't seem to install the exe. Anyone know how to get it working on FF + GNU/Linux? No?

      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...

  • Thank God, I hate the obtrusive advertising. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by urbanriot ( 924981 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:11AM (#23361058)
    I'll never adopt Silverlight, or at least I'll wait until the bitter end (probably like I did with Macromedia Flash), mainly because I'm sick and tired of seeing their obtrusive "Install Silverlight" popup that you're forced to view every time you go onto their web site with Internet Explorer. That alone makes me hate it, and raises my... annoyance with Microsoft.

  • Perfect Slashdot Article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:12AM (#23361062) Homepage Journal

    "Microsoft still has not adopted Silverlight, and uses Flash all over it's 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."

    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.

    • Haha, man, I'd mod you up if I had the points. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought the same and I'm sure you could attribute the wide-eyed naivety to a youngster who hasn't been out in the real world, let alone constructed proper sentences. "...the software giants seems to be not even trying." "In fact, even most Microsoft web sites..." Classic.
    • Bravo, a perfect summary! I got suckered too :D
  • Wow, you mean switching from one animation format to another completely different animation format on one of the world's largest websites takes time?!

    WTF! SOMEONE ALERT SLASHDOT!
  • Umm, if 95% of their visitors have Flash installed and 10% (or what?) have SilverLight installed, well, they would be idiots if they didn't use Flash...
  • "uses Flash all over it's websites"

    Good job with failing to grasp the subtleties of basic sixth-grade grammar, editors.

  • Adobe is Poised to Lose It (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bxwatso ( 1059160 ) on Saturday May 10, 2008 @10:46AM (#23361292)
    IMO, Adobe is actively against MS. Acrobat is still not fully Vista compatible. Flash crashes my IE7 daily, and there are no x64 plans that I know of (they made a vague announcement a long time ago).

    Silverlight works just fine on my web site and doesn't crash anything. MS is pushing a lot of content providers to try Silverlight, so the install base should go up this summer.

    MS lost its edge in the OS war through complacency and slow roll-out performance. I see Adobe doing the same with Flash.

    • IMO, Adobe is actively against MS.

      Or you're just paranoid.

      I build and maintain dozens of websites and have thoroughly tested them on a variety of machines running different versions of Windows and Mac OS. If anything, Flash and most Adobe products for the last couple of years work better on Windows.

      Adobe might have a few differences of principle with Microsoft, but they like the money from Microsoft's customers as much as anyone else's.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by cbhacking ( 979169 )
      I'm actually surprised you're haing troubles with Flash and IE7 - I had the same issues, but with Firefox. It eventually got so bad I just stopped going to certain sites at all using Firefox, and since the IE8 beta came out I've been testing it heavily - while I won't claim it's un-crashable (though remarkably stable for an early beta) I've had no issues with Flash.

      Silverlight seems to work fine on both, though I've only run across a few sites that use it.

      As for Acrobat, are you talking the PDF creation too
  • I am a contractor working on a high profile Microsoft web application at the moment and we are using Flash in it.
    The decision is nothing against Silverlight, we have discussed using Silverlight.
    The issue is with the skills that the designers who are contracting have.
    Microsoft do use a lot a Silverlight across their web applications, try the downloads beta for example.
    You will see a lot more of it being used once there are more designers with experience using it.
    Flash has got over ten years of being in the m
  • TFA:

    the Microsoft Home Page and the Microsoft Developer Network use Silverlight
    Summary:

    "Microsoft still has not adopted Silverlight, and uses Flash all over it's websites."
    Apparently, "all its websites" [note the lack of apostrophe] doesn't include the home page and MSDN...
  • Since they use FrontPage, I'm sure they're just waiting for the silverfish integration to make things easier on their developers.

    ;)
  • "...its websites", my dear Editor in Chief. Possessive. Not "it's", which is a contraction of "it is." Unless you think that "Microsoft still has not adopted Silverlight, and uses Flash all over it is websites" is correct.

    Are you proud of taking a paycheck to be so sloppy? Of course your entire premise is raw, unpolished, content-free flamebait. But good flamebait should still use correct punctuation.

  • This said it better than I could have:

    http://blog.dennyboynton.com/post/Why-is-Microsoft-So-Slow-to-Adopt-Silverlight.aspx [dennyboynton.com]

    ...when I talk to people about adopting Silverlight, they always make the comment, "I already have so much Flash built into my web site, I don't know where to start with Silverlight." Well, the good news is you don't have to throw out the baby with the bath water. The fact of the matter is that you can begin to implement Silverlight where it makes sense in your web site without modifying or removing any of the Flash assets you already have in place. Silverlight will run just fine in a web page with Flash, so you can iteratively begin the process if implementing Silverlight and, if prudent, replacing Flash to take advantage of XAML, developer/designer collaboration, developing in managed code and all the other benefits Silverlight has to offer. No expensive and painful "big bang" replacement is necessary. Find a requirement for which Silverlight is a good fit and implement it. It's as simple as that.

    The truth is, while the rest of the world would hold Microsoft to a higher standard than any other company, at the end of the day Microsoft works very much like the IT shops you probably work in. Each Microsoft product and web site has a team of developers and product managers that have a finite budget, timeline and resource pool in which to work. Believe me, if Silverlight could be deployed as a replacement to Flash across all Microsoft web sites next week, it would certainly make my job a hell of a lot easier, but that's not possible and difficult decisions have to be made in order to deliver a multitude of solutions currently underway on time and on budget.

    I can all but guarantee you that there are roadmaps in place to adopt Silverlight across most or all of the Microsoft web assets. That adoption will be rolled-out in a manner that delivers value to the business and as it makes sense. You're seeing that adoption begin on Microsoft.com and MSDN, and should see it on more Microsoft sites in the coming months and years, a very timely example being the new Expression Suite web site, all built in Silverlight...

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