RSSWPF/E Becomes 'Silverlight:' Microsoft Takes on Flash Directly
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published April 16, 2007, 10:00 AM
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Microsoft has obviously learned from the ActiveX experience, having discovered that Web developers aren't willing to invest their time in completely replacing their online assets for an incomplete technology, on the strength of a powerful brand and promises alone. Any migration a Web publisher makes from HTML/Flash to XAML/Silverlight must be gradual, incremental, staged.
Moreover, the manufacturer must address the Web developer whose skills were honed in graphic design, not programming. In prior years, Microsoft's strategy was to move all developers to Visual Studio, as if graphic arts was merely a surface veneer, beneath which the artists' inner mathematicians were just waiting to burst forth. The fact that the two skill sets are not shared among a single group of developers, is no longer something that's lost on Microsoft.
As Brian Goldfarb explained, "Today, the typical workflow for designers and developers working together is, the designer works in Photoshop, marks up a comp, throws it over the walls to the developer, who then implements that, shows it to the designer, and they go, 'Wait a second, that's not at all what I envisioned!' There's this sort of 'Lost in Translation Syndrome' that's going on."
The hope now is that both sets of tools - Expression and Visual Studio - can complement one another at one level, and interface at another.
"The designers are working in Expression Studio using the visual metaphors and interactive design elements that they're used to; the developers are working in Visual Studio using XAML directly and using code, but they're all working and collaborating on the same project," he remarked. "So no longer do they have a lost-in-translation issue; we do have a round-tripping story that eliminates some of these discrepancies and what happens in the modern process today.
"We don't want people to have to rip-and-replace. They can take their existing skills in HTML and JavaScript. They can take their existing skills with XAML, and bring all of those to bear on building these new media experiences and RIAs on the Web using Silverlight, and using common tools," outlined Goldfarb.
Joining Microsoft this week at NAB will be three big-league partners - literally. Major League Baseball will be previewing a Silverlight application that presents a baseball fan with a dream environment for projecting statistics and video, in a rich, bubbling, liquid plasma of sports content. IPTV technology developer Brightcove will be showing off new rich media applications, presumably for both computers and set-top boxes, using Silverlight for both.
But perhaps most foretelling of the future of Silverlight on customers' systems will be a demonstration by advertising media developer Eyeblaster. Brian Goldfarb gave us some insight: "Today when you look at video ads, there's the standard pre-roll, 15-second clip, your one-minute CNN video, and then your 15-second post-roll clip. That's become the boring way of delivering advertising and video. Silverlight as a technology expands the capabilities of what you can do there, and that's why EyeBlaster is so interested, because they're looking at ways they can create contextualized advertising, embedded advertising, things that don't break apart the experience.
"So think about this: You're watching your favorite TV show on NBC, and up pops the little sparkly graphic at the bottom that says, 'Heroes,' and then advertises the next episode that's up for seven seconds, it's overlaid on top of your existing content, and it's completely seamless, and not really that intrusive," Goldfarb continued. "Silverlight has that capability for the Web, in changing the way that advertising and online video is integrated together. I think that is a super-compelling part of the story."
Watching the relative performance of Silverlight in the ever-changing Web development market will be intriguing for a variety of reasons. Perhaps not since Money first went up against Quicken has Microsoft entered an established market as a challenger. But more importantly, Microsoft has an opportunity here to establish itself as part of the fabric of the Web without either the intent or the appearance of consuming the Web in one colossal gulp.
Flash isn't going away anytime soon, and however efficient or elegant Silverlight may turn out to be, it won't be perceived as the solution rescuing customers from a Flash-based debacle. Even if Silverlight succeeds, unless Adobe somehow collapses, it won't capture a typically Microsoft-sized, 95% market share.
Silverlight is the blue, fuzzy, nebulous story of Microsoft as a genuine competitor. It will be interesting to see how comfortable the company will be in this role.
Hmm - I'm more curious as to what the tools will cost and how easy it will be to build dynamic content with it (e.g. querying a database, updating a database, etc).
Knowing MS - it will probably be much easier than it is within Flash. If it's also a lot cheaper, then Flash may have a real run for itself.
My biggest beef with flash has always been that it's so complicated, if I can turn out a slick, dynamic site with all of the bells and whistles that are capable in Flash, but in a fraction of the time and cost - hmm, I wonder which way I'll go...?
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|lol, so much MS/Windows envy...go try WPFE or of course now, Starlight, that thing is sweet.
Seriously, if you haven't even tested it out, just do it and get a perspective. It has a whole different feel to it and no it isn't a copy cat, just another piece of competition.
Consumers...we all want scalable vector formats right? SVG...all flavors of production competition...just as you would buy something a development kit to make a website, game, app, dbase...etc.
If you don't like it...that's the beauty of it, you can keep using what you prefer! amazing! :D
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|Thanks for this information.
iphone video
http://www.iphoneconvert.../iphone-video-converter/
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|Wow, another substandard copycat of someone else's better idea. WAY TO GO MICROSOFT, you officially blow chunks! Expect Microsoft to abandon it within two years. Let's hope BetaNews follows up on the quiet obituary at that time.
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|In two years, this player will be installed on 80% of PCs (thanks Automatic Updates!!) and actual usage will be at least 10% worldwide. In the small businesses and nonpro individual markets, Microsoft (cheap/free) tools are always well received. WMV is a VERY popular format these days. This new format will effectively be (for the common usages) WMV on stereoids. It will be a big hit with porn sites.
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|In what way is it "substandard"?
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|cant wait for the buffer overflows... im practically feverish with anticipation
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|Wow so I guess everyone with a website is a copycat because it all uses HTML code? Give me a break... everything is copied, repackaged and tweaked to call it their own.
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|I have been using WPF/E silverlight for months already in the preview version. It's a very cool multimedia system, though I really don't find it has much in common with Flash, mostly because it's very good at integrating with other Web technologies, like SQL databases, ASP.NET, PHP. The whole design methodology lends to serious customization (especially when using it as a media player). The whole thing is designed to just do what it needs to and integrate with other technologies. I like it's event model better than Flash and honestly it's good client technology even if you are a Mac developer.
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|this is what confuses so many out there...but you have the idea ;). It is just another SVG development platform. I like it.
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|Hey, donnyemu!
Thank you for having a technical perspective (unlike political perspectives of many others). I would like to add that unlike Flash, Silverlight's big brother WPF will be well integrated on the desktop. And the picture on the desktop is opposite: MS has already done it with WPF and Adobe will try to compete when they introduce Apollo at the end of 2007.
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|If Microsoft thinks that creative producers are going to switch from any application, including Flash, to ANY Microsoft application for developing media for the web, they have been smoking something illegal.
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|Have you tried Expression Web (I know I said the name was pathetic)? It's BETTER than Dreamweaver if you are a web designer.
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|Disagree with you there, a lot.
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|"So think about this: You're watching your favorite TV show on NBC, and up pops the little sparkly graphic at the bottom that says, 'Heroes,' and then advertises the next episode that's up for seven seconds, it's overlaid on top of your existing content, and it's completely seamless, and not really that intrusive,"
Sorry for the long quote, but how many people agree with me that this is not only the worst possible thing to happen to web browsing since pop-ups, and is the #1 thing on my list of things my ad blocker better prevent. If such a feature is hard coded I'm going to disable it all together, which would be a big hit for them if their trying to get it to be used like flash, which is annoyingly intrusive as it is if your not using FF's flash block extension (ever click on several myspace links at a time...).
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|Also, this will be the greatest thing ever to those websites that don't let you close out of them, while flashing porn windows that hide cover or just plane disallow clicking X. On your work computer. Which all so often tends to belong to a teacher in a classroom full of elementary school students.
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|I agree.
I'd like to see some samples of the Microsoft technology though. I could bet that almost any vector animation including M$ XML will be fat, will not transfer smoothly and will have the worst quality render and problems you can dream of, unless they bought some company with an existing product. In that case the bloating/self destructing job will take couple of versions. In both cases, they will eat some significant market share.
Don't get me wrong, I will be happy if I have to eat my own words (the product only got its name), but... I already know Microsoft too much.
Now, Microsoft fanboys, you can start bashing me right now (I already know Betacrosoft fanboys too).
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|I just surprised it's taken this long. Maybe they thought Flash would fizzle like embedded java did.
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|"Generally it builds up a technology around a code-name, such as "Avalon," that becomes a platform that sounds like a pharmaceutical ingredient, like "WPF" (Windows Presentation Foundation). Today, it's "WPF/E," with the "E" standing for "Everywhere," that's getting the name change to the nicer-sounding name, the easier-to-swallow marketing premise, and the fuzzier logo - literally a fuzzy blue sphere."
"If Microsoft went up against Flash with "WPF/E" or "X-PLAT," the immediate result with consumers might have been "whoops" or "splat.""
oh come on. a little less commentary? wordy enough without a long "joke" every other sentence.
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|I'm not a programmer and I have invested allot of time learning Action Script. Flash is finally becoming more popular and it has taken years. I don't know if I want to start all over with something new. The only way I can see this working is if the plugin comes installed on the computer or with automatic updates. My only problem with Flash is that the end user is afraid to download something that they know nothing about.
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|taken years?
Flash was installed on like 97% of client machines in 1999!
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|O RLY?
I don't think I actually had a need to install it until 04 or so.
I'd love to see where you got those numbers, if ya don't mind.
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|It really was on most machines in the late 90s - swf was used everywhere. It was hard to avoid installing it and was mostly annoying. It's really come on strong though in the last few year as a serious web dev platform.
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|Where have you been in the last 10 Years? Playing T Ball?
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|Softball, actually.
..and only on weekends.
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|What I'm most interested in is pricing. I like Flash, but my main gripe is the fact you have to pay a very high price for it. If Microsoft makes available a good free tool for creating Silverlight content, I would definitely give it a try.
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|Amen to that.
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|Adobe pushed a Flash variant, until they gave up and bought it.
History will repeat itself. Just like Flex, Microsoft will capitulate, and allow its IDE to export to .swf within 18 months.
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|This is great news for developers. Who cares about the name? They could call it Microsoft Peanut Butter for all I care. For competition, this is something that is long-overdue. We have another tool we can use to make great websites.
Sam
http://blogs.samstange.com
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|MPB...I like it!
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|*snip*
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|One thing that eludes me, why does MS have to be so uncreative in copying names from competitors?
Gadget - Widget
Dashboard - Dashboard
Aero - Aqua (okay, this one is debatable)
Silverlight - Flash
And when they can't copy, they would come up with pathetic names, like Office 2007, Expression Web, Blend, Design, Ajax Extension and this WPF/E.
No wonder people deride them.
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|I guess I'd rather a company spend more time on the product itself than trying to come up with some great name that causes people to bow before it. And what is wrong with names like Office 2007, Expression Web, Blend Design, Ajax Extension. They are descriptive names for what they do. I'd rather call it AJAX Extension (which says what it does) than call it some flashy name like Microsoft Supernova or some animal name like Microsoft Elephant which says nothing about the product.
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|what does that even mean?? You don't like the names of the products? What would you like gadgets to be called? Microsoft Crystals? This is the most nit picky post on betanews I've ever seen I think.
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|I'm surprised it wasn't renamed "Microsoft Flash-Killer Attempt 2007 .NET Ultimate Premium Extras Edition"
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|What does/did Konfabulator call their widgets? ...and EVERYONE seems to have a dashboard. MS even had a dashboard for Outlook in the 1990s.
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|Hmmm.... Microsoft Elephant = a bloated OS!!!
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