Microsoft hopes users see the (Silver) light
Microsoft Senior VP S. Somasegar notes that the early posting of Silverlight 3 to the Web was an accident and not a "clever marketing ploy."
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft kicked off its latest effort to challenge Adobe's Flash by launching Silverlight 3 at an event Friday.
The code actually made its debut a little early, hitting the Web on Thursday.
In his opening remarks on Friday, Microsoft Senior Vice President S. Somasegar made reference to Silverlight's premature release.
"I can tell you it wasn't a clever marketing ploy," Somegar said. "It was sort of a small mistake that somebody made and we decided to let it go."
Silverlight still has a long way to go to match Flash's ubiquity, with Adobe's technology found on nearly all PCs and a growing number of cell phones. Microsoft says Silverlight 2 is now on one in three Internet devices. That version launched nine months ago.
Silverlight has had a mixed record in its initial efforts to take streaming business from Adobe's Flash. It has scored key deals to power NBC's 2008 Summer and 2010 Winter Olympics sites.
It also won a deal to power Major League Baseball's Web site, but the league went back to Flash for the 2009 season, blaming stability and other issues, according to sources.
Among the new features in Silverlight 3 are the ability to create Silverlight applications that run outside the browser as well as support for a "smooth streaming" technology that allows video to be streamed at up to 1080p HDTV quality.
Microsoft announced a couple new customers for Silverlight on Friday including MGM which is using it to produce SGU: Stargate Universe site and Continental Airlines, which is remaking its reservation call-center application as a Silverlight application running via a Web browser. NBC also said it will use Silverlight for its high-quality video streaming across its sporting events.
As part of Friday's event, Microsoft also said version 3 of its Expression design tools will be available within the next 30 days. A release candidate version of one component, Expression Blend 3, was posted on Thursday to Microsoft's Web site.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
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Flash had the advantage of having a headstart when desktop computers didn't have mindshare competition from handheld devices. The world has changed in the past year (since the opening of the App Store).
For widespread adoption, new Internet technologies must factor in handheld devices with their memory, CPU, network, graphics, screen space and battery life constraints.
http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming
Pretty wicked.
First, Microsoft tries to kill QuickTime on the web (first by introducing incompatibilities in IE, then by promoting Macromedia and Flash), and now they're trying to kill Flash (Adobe owns it now, and Microsoft can't control them...)
The reason why is simple enough - he(or she) who controls embedded active content controls the web. Unless Microsoft can wrest some control over it (like they had over OEMs all this time), they're going to be screwed in the long run. It also explains a lot as to why they're so eager to have a Linux-native version of Silverlight out there...
Like how Adobe PDF include 3D rendering and all, but 99.7% of people just need it to show text... a lot of times not even a picture. But its a good thing.
Competetion leads to one thing... innovation. Just like what stir Firefox brought about.
Microsoft bringing a player to the market will get adobe to innovate further. HD streaming w/ quick start, a smaller memory footprint, OS and browser compatability, etc. would be good places to give some work to.
Agreed.
OTOH, I suspect that the goal of Microsoft in this case isn't exactly to compete, but to get their foot into tomorrow's door. Nothing wrong with that, so long as they don't violate any anti-trust laws to do it.
Totally agree about Acrobats bloat. Try using Foxit's PDF reader -- it's pretty cool. Full-featured (not even in the least bit stripped down) and still fast as hell..
"Nothing wrong with that, so long as they don't violate any anti-trust laws to do it."
>>>>Don't know, but they apparently already have with IE itself. Opera is suing them for abusing their dominant position with the introduction of proprietary Web standards, and for "illegally" bundling Internet Explorer into Windows. This to me sounds absolutely ludicrous, but I guess that's communism.
Microsoft was trying to satisfy this lawsuit by remove IE from European copies of Windows as with WMP, but I guess the EU isn't going for it. They want Windows to display a "ballot screen" upon activation or first connection to the Internet, giving users a choice between IE, Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. We'll have to wait and see what happens.
The PDF viewer is a whole other subject, but there are plenty of non-adobe solutions.
Although I really don't care what runs the video in Websites, my choice will all depend on how seamless it is. If it's another piece of MS buggy garbage, then I won't want to use it (but then, who would?). However, if it works without any hitches, then I could care less if any sites use it. If MS starts being a problem for any reason, these sites can change back to something else. That's the beauty of having so many choices.
Any PDF viewer other than Acrobat is a me-too product. See how juvenile that sounds?
Any website that uses flash loses my eyeballs. See how juvenile that sounds?
Stop taking your opinions so seriously. Or try building a stronger, more well thought out case next time -- maybe *somebody* will take it seriously.
It seems similar to Bing - sure, Bing is a big improvement over the old MSN Search, but it needs to either A. Beat Google in general or B. Be especially good at a particular type of search, making it a great secondary engine for places where Google is weak. It fails to do both, and the massive ad campaign they're running isn't going to change that.
MS needs to learn that on the web, you're not making deals with clueless CEOs that can barely use a computer, you're making them on the development side directly with the developers - who choose to use your platform or not, and with users, who decide if you bring anything new to the technology. Marketing may get people on your site, but if you don't have a reason for them to STAY on the site once you get them there, you don't have any users... and you can't just destroy all of your competitors like MS normally does - the web evolves too fast for that. MS needs to learn actual innovation, or they're going to continue to fall behind.
Maybe you answered your own question. How much does silverlight cost developers? Every resource I found was free.
Adobe Flash Pro CS4 on amazon- $600
You say they do pretty much the same thing. If I had to pick between those two technologies right now (not considering html5), which would I choose? Free or $600?
Cody
It keeps Microsoft in control. That is the primary reason it exists.
"you need Visual Studio to do MS development. That is just as expensive as Adobe tools"
I use Visual Basic 2008 Express, which is free, and it works perfectly for me.
The difference in the browser example was that Firefox and other browsers were and still are better than IE. Silverlight doesn't improve on Flash in anyway.
Five years ago, they would've had a chance. Now, all they can hope for is a middlin' share of a doomed market. Fine work, Microsoft. As usual.
(don't think of where the puck is, but keep an eye on where it's going to be).
Again, I know there really isn't a reason for most people (I use it for 6GB of ram in a gaming rig) but one day it will be and having x64 support in more software means a quicker adoption rate and hopefully smaller OS installs by not having to have both 32 and 64 versions of software / libraries / etc.
i dont know, just alot of the comments seems to suggest that.
Flash was great, yes, and really was the "only" solution that existed for many things. so having a second solution is bad? i dont know, i keep hearing competition is good on other stuff why is it bad here? enlighten me(unless, of course, u decide to say it's MS so it's bad, then dont bother =.=)
(That seems to sum up the feeling of most posters here...)
Cody
Therefore, when it does make something actually pretty cool it just gets thrown in the, "it's bad" catagory. Unlike Microsoft, Google is Good. Everything Google does is good. If they make an OS - it's great! If it doesn't exist yet, that's okay too! If it creates an application - it's the best thing since sliced bread. No matter that Google is the satan of privacy - it's still good. We can accept the US Patriot Act we certainly can accept Google! yeah!
Microsoft is so yesterday - they make software... software sucks man! Software is not cool... web applications are the new thing - desktop software sucks! We want all our applications on the web... yeah! We want Google to own all our information and control it and market it and sell it and make it free! Yes, FREE! They can charge big companies to see all our search habits, our health records, and everything else! Woohoo!
so you are saying any competition that doesnt destroy the opponent is not a competition?, sorry may be i shouldnt say that, but do remember silver light has improve much in the past 2 years. I've used it and i actually like streaming on silverlight better.
Also flash isnt as great as many of the ppl on here say it is. it isnt bad, it definitely have room for improvement.
Reminds me of when M$ made IE for Unix & Mac OS.
The, by pure coincidence (yeah, right), when M$ achieved browser market dominance, they dropped support for all platforms but Windows.
Isn't this Microsoft's motto?
Flash is overused. Too many people using it to make websites, which often have small menus that quickly pop up and quickly disappear. Design overcoming utility. I prefer HTML, with some Javascript. Flash is fine for streaming video. But when used by "artsy" web developers it is a source of frustration.
- by kelmon July 11, 2009 4:38 AM PDT
- I think it is going to be interesting to see if Silverlight sees any adoption outside of the US. So far the only web site I have used that makes use of Silverlight is Microsoft's own (shocking, huh?). Everything else that I've heard of using it tends to be a US-centric, or even US-only, web site.
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