MLB.com drops Silverlight for Adobe Flash

Microsoft is losing MLB.com, Major League Baseball's online unit and one of the Web's most successful subscription services, as a Silverlight customer.

MLB Advanced Media said Monday it will use Adobe's Flash Platform to deliver all live and on-demand video starting next year.

The deal, announced at the Adobe Max conference running in San Francisco this week, hands Adobe one of the largest and likely most profitable video services out there. MLB.com has signed up more than 1.5 million subscribers since 2003 and streams more than 2,500 regular and postseason games annually. Moreover, MLBAM has been a technological leader and is influential among Web video services.

"Microsoft has appreciated the partnership of MLB.com," said Microsoft Vice President Scott Guthrie. "Microsoft continues to be very pleased with the success of Silverlight. We have a great ecosystem that includes more than 150 partners."

Adobe's Flash Player is by far the largest video platform, installed on more than 98 percent of Web-connected content, the company said.

"Flash provides a TV-like experience. You turn it on and it works," said Bob Bowman, president and CEO of MLBAM. "We want it to be flexible so we can add features...and it's got to be scalable. We are the largest server of live entertainment in the country. Whether we are serving 20,000 for one game or 250,000 for another game, it's got to be scalable over periods of time like nothing else."

Bowman was tight-lipped when asked to provide specifics for how Adobe's Flash outperforms Microsoft Silverlight. "I'm going to reserve all my comments on Silverlight and suggest any comments I have, positive or negative, will be discussed at a later date."

Adobe's news comes on the same day that Guthrie posted a blog announcing a few details on Silverlight 3, which is due out next year.

Click here for more news on Adobe's Max conference.

[Vegaman_Dan]

It was the end of the limited time deal they had. Just like the Olympics and NBC.

Look into the issue a bit further, Mr. Sandoval. It's not that they are dropping it, they were just doing it as a test run.

[MatthewFabb]

True that they were just testing Silverlight, but MLB.com were using Windows Media Video for several years now, previously being displayed via Windows Media Player. Silverlight was supposed to have been a way to use the same back-end infrastructure, while providing the video in a more user friendly way rather than embedded Windows Media Player. Switching over to Flash, means MLB is making a new large investment in Flash Media Server over their existing infrastructure. Plus MLB keep old seasons on demand, it means re-encoding a large amount of video.

Also interesting is if you google the MLB.com forums with the keyword Silverlight, you get a lot of customers who were really unhappy with the performance of the plugin:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mlbsupport.com%2Fforum%2F+silverlight&btnG=Google+Search
I imagine these type of complains more than anything influenced MLB's decision to move to Silverlight.

[drhamad]

You very well may be correct, Vegaman_Dan... I assume you are, without looking into it myself... but that's not really relevant. At the end of a test, you either choose to keep the technology, or you drop it. The phrasing of the article is still correct. Microsoft IS losing the MLB. The MLB IS dropping Silverlight for Flash.

[DrtyDogg]

That's a big setback to Silverlight. Adobe was evidently pissed about the olympics and stepped up it's efforts to get this.

[TxTom21]

Flash video players aren't as reliable as Adobe would like you to think. Often I have to recycle a page view to reload a feed because the players lock up...and Yahoo's video is the worst for that. I often lock up at the end of their opening commercial and never even get to the item I'm waiting for. And that's using Firefox.

[Lerianis]

Actually, that isn't a problem with the Flash player, it's more a problem with your connection slowing down or hiccuping for a second and getting the Flash player confused about whether it is supposed to play or not.

[rapier1]

Lerianis,

How is that not a problem with the flash players then?

[COKEDUDE]

rapier1, This is a problem with not having very much bandwidth. So that is your ISP's fault for not giving you very much bandwidth. Flash Player usually needs a decent amount of bandwidth. Flash Player works very well with a decent amount of bandwidth and Silverlight never works properly at all.

[daltwisney]

I don't think MLB is necessarily tied to one "media provider" for the longterm. Media delivery seems to be changing (e.g., quality, speed), and Silverlight 3 can provide decent cross-browser features and ease-of-use, MLB and other high profile websites will jump to Silverlight. Yeah, I get the media page lockups (Firefox 2 and 3) too. I guess it's not just me who is watching the latest Star Trek HD trailer. =)

[kenstee]

This is great news!

Silverlight's performance on MLB.com this season was horrible - particularly on Macs.

Can't wait for '09 now!

[drhamad]

Yeah, I'm definitely not complaining about this switch either. Silverlight worked, but Flash, at least at this stage, definitely works better, especially, as you say, on Mac's. (Yay for lots of comma's)

[i_am_still_wade]

Don't have Silverlight, don't want it. When you do everything, you do nothing well. Microsoft has failed to learn that lesson. Case-in-point: Live search, Silverlight, Internet Explorer, Plays for Sure.

The only reason why a website would use Silverlight is because of the accursed DRM built-in.

[Unmindfulawe]

This is good news all around for everyone. I think people forget the maturity of Adobe's flash player. It was conceived in 1996. And during that time it has become the industry standard platform for interactivity and video. Microsoft's Silverlight, is in my opinion, a sham. They tout the player as being cross-platform and cross-browser. But the reality is this; who can truly call their player cross-platform if you are going to dump off the development of the player for Linux on Novell. That's exactly what Microsoft did with their Linux implementation of Silverlight which Novell named moonlight. Adobe is a progressive company that is always innovating in the right direction. The integration between all of their mastering software has become astounding. Its the most elegant work flow for generating video and graphics out there. And get this, Adobe's listens to their customers' desires, not their pocketbook. What company decides to not only support an operating system(Linux) with an installed base of less than 1 percent but also to develop their 64 bit plugin first for that platform citing "customer demand"? Its a company that looks progressively to the future. Microsoft on the other hand will not succeed in this sector and has to catch up on 12 years of development time. Are they willing to pump enough money into Silverlight in order for it to overtake Flash? Currently it looks like the answer is No.

[ewelch]

Silverlight is losing because the development tools are Windows-only, and creatives prefer Macs. It's pretty much that, and the fact that Silverlight is not ubuiquitous, and Flash is on 95 percent of all computers.

MLB just make the proper decision. Now add h.264 to the mix (like YouTube did) and everybody's happy.

[YankeePoodle]

yes Microsoft lost and Adobe won, Now back to work. (its OK to be delusional)

[streamOG]

Silverlight will support H.264 and AAC in a matter of weeks.

Unlike Flash, Silverlight will have a DRM solution today.

MLB drops Silverlight while over 150+ content owners adopt it. MLB would not have been a big contributor of Silverlight installs given their limited user reach.

[COKEDUDE]

I am very happy about this. I use MLB.com's subscription service every season. Silverlight is absolutely awful. Silverlight almost never works.

[Silverlight2]

Do we want Flash to hold its Monopoly?

Why our standards are different? We do not want Microsoft to monopolize?

Checkout cool Silverlight application show case at http://silverlight.net/Showcase/


Also visit http://ultralearn.com/ultralearn/MashupStudio.aspx , this is rated 2nd at http://silverlight.net/Showcase/

And decide for yourself what exactly Silverlight can do.

[reya276]

Oh my my this is so funny I went to checkout the so called showcased and guess what it requires for me to install Silverlight so I can't see it. Could it be because I'm running Ubuntu, oh well flash works with all sites and since I very very rarely encounter a SilverSucks one then I guess I'm good to go then. Look don't be sore looser Microsoft Fanboys. you know what really kills me is that some of you out there put your money on MS on a web tech, MS has never been able to do anything right on the web and Adobe/Macromedia has always been at the top of its game. Farewell SilverSucks we will miss you, can't even watch that showcase...LOL...LOL sometimes I just kill myself...LOL...

[cnexufinguh]

Re: Flash's alleged "monopoly":

Most sensible consumers of apps and operating systems are wise to be wary of monopolies because they can result in lock-in, bullying (of competitors and/or consumers), and reduced options and quality.

A ubiquitous file format such as Flash, on the other hand, is not so much a "monopoly" as it is a de facto internet standard. And standardization in file formats is a good thing.

The world needs fewer PC video standards/apps/codecs, not more. Though Flash is not perfect, it is a helluva lot more mature than Silverlight, and as of today produces a significantly better video experience in every respect. I'm watching USA vs. Venezuela right now and am THRILLED that mlb.tv quality is now the best it's ever been (this is my 5th season as an mlb.tv subscriber). Last year's Silverlight experiment was a jerky, coarse, lossy, pixelated joke.

Nobody asked Microsoft to divert time, energy and money to solve a problem that had already been solved via Flash. Frankly those of us in IT (20+ years now) would much rather have seen MS funnel big bucks into the stability, security and performance of its core product line. The "problem" that MS was trying to solve was that Flash had a 95+ percent penetration on the desktop, a fact that no doubt made Gates green with envy.

I can already watch Youtube on my nice 'n small Java-based mobile, and am now hopeful that mlb.tv will make it possible to stream games to my phone. With a silverlight-powered mlb.tv that was NEVER going to happen, unless of course I "upgraded" to some Win Mobile-based brick.

THANK YOU MLB.TV, you did the right thing.

[reya276]

Yes thank you MLB indeed! What you Silverlight loyal followers don't understand is that Flash has no lock-in. For some reason you users fail to see that. Don't know what lock-in is look it up. Flash works on all platforms it does not care which OS you run, as for silverlight well a very different story. Micorsoft cripples the Silverlight performance on every non MS OS or web browser which results in a bad product and very very poor performance. Flash on the other hand works very well in most web browsers and OS. Now if you have a ****** desktop/laptop which can keep up with current tech and or have a ****** broadband/DSL provider this my friends has nothing to do with FLASH. I have never had a problem with it on my PC why? because I have a good broadband conn. and an up to par PC. so suck on that MS fanboys, now go watch your porn on SilverSucks...oh wait it can't do that just yet...LOL!