Comments on: Flash and Flex continue to blow away Silverlight

Microsoft is trying to win the RIA fight. It's losing. Big time.

[kenneth.barber]

Hahaha ... "It will be better next revision" - is becoming the new catch phrase of Microsoft:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/136666.asp

[kenneth.barber]

Hahaha ... "It will be better next revision" ... seems to be the catch phrase for Microsoft. Lately they seem to be using it more often as well :-).

[thefakealgore]

It's no wonder that Flash & Flex are dominating Silverlight, when you offer an open source tool that's supported on virtually all browsers, developers don't have to fear developing obsolete code. at www.DigitalChalk.com we are also looking at Google Gears for some casually connected functionality.

[Zen-Masta]

Well, this is to be expected considering Flash has 12 years on its belt. Silverlight is only what, 1 year out of beta right. I've been to the ms site and prompted to install silver light but you don't HAVE to, to keep using the site. That part is misleading.

[alegr]

The sooner we can dump the Flash crap, the better. I'm sick of my browser taking 100% of CPU, until I disable Flash. I can't want for YouTube and other major sites offering SilverLight option, then I'll be able to ditch Flash for good.

Ask your computer geek friend to check your PC - probably something bad is going on in there.

[seanupton]

Both platforms are orthogonal to the web, which is a document-centric platform. And to some degree any openness of either platform is just a nice sheet of plexiglass around the walled garden. Openness? No.

[PeteMagsig]

I don't think a comparison between Silverlight 1.0 and Flash is relevant any longer, at least not since MIX08. I've been doing prototypes in Silverlight 2.0 for several weeks now, and the power of the platform, when coupled with WCF, is like nothing I've ever seen for the web. The ease with which I'm creating web applications that run in a browser yet truly behave like applications is, well, unparalleled. Anyone that doesn't take a serious look at Silverlight 2.0 for developing web apps is going to be cheating themselves out of some serious power tools. Check out silverlight.net for details, or the MIX08 videos if you want to see what I'm talking about.

I agree, Silverlight 1.0 was pretty weak sauce, but 2.0 is a full-on development platform. Compared with the recent experiences we've had with Flash based apps at my company, I can honestly say I doubt we'll be doing any serious Flash development any longer. Now, we develop apps, not ads - I'd still recommend Flash for making advertisements and stuff like that. I just wouldn't use it as a web app platform. You can see Flash's roots come from Director, whereas Silverlight's roots come from WPF, WCF, and .Net. Two "different trees" entirely. Beware comparing apple trees to orange trees, here.

The previous post is right, too - Silverlight is great for web *apps*, not web *sites*. I'd still stick to HTML / asp.net / rubyonrails / etc. for regular web pages. They're also right that neither Silverlight nor Flash is an open standards scenario. Both are quite proprietary.