DIGG IT! It has been 4 years since Microsoft started talking about "Sparkle" and 2 years since unveiling WPF/E at MIX '06. Microsoft shipped Silverlight 1.0 today. It's great to have such a large company trying to compete with Adobe Flash Player.
Flash development has prospered in relatively small ecosystem of passionate developers/designers for the past 10 years. Only in the past 5 years has it made a move into the mainstream and is now the de-facto standard for creating interactivity, video, and RIA on the web. We are seeing sites depend on Adobe Flash Player for all sorts of interactivity and soon will see the same richness deployed to the desktop with Adobe Integrated Runtime, AIR. We even added an entirely new development paradigm called Flex to expand the developer market who could create RIA. The Flex SDK (FREE) is perfectly suited to classical software developers using C, C++, C#, .NET, Java, VB, Delphi but specifically for creating RIA. The Flex SDK and the Flex Builder IDE will ship in their 4th generation in early 2008 and I think it will again push us ever forward.
SilverLight forced Adobe to speed up existing plans and focus on broad adoption while adding great developer features in the runtime. Internally the gloves are off and teams are full speed ahead creating the next generation of RIA tools and runtimes. Customer feedback (#1) and competitive pressure (#2) were driving factors in creating "MovieStar" and pushing our H.264 adoption plans forward with full 720/1080p hardware scaling support. When "MovieStar" ships in the next few months, yes in 2007, it will support millions of existing H.264 video content by default without special streaming solutions or proprietary video codecs like Microsoft's VC1.
Flash Player 9 continues to make great strides forward in adoption in current support of over 90% of web enabled desktop computers. It has been installed over the last 12 months over 2.5 Billion times, not downloaded, installed across 3 minor releases! For developers looking for wide compatible deployment of rich content it is the only choice for end users. On the MLB.com site, SilverLight showcase, I was watching the Flash banner advertisements for "StubHub" long before the SilverLight plug-in started playback. The Flash content on that page just worked without an installation and loaded current game data via a data feed on the game selected.
At Adobe MAX 2007 in Chicago we are going showing off the next full release of Flash Player code named "Astro". The features are mind blowing and add capabilities far beyond anything the market today. The future of Adobe Flash Player looks very bright indeed.
Microsoft, thanks for the competition!
Cheers,
Ted :)
Thanks to Ted, you gave us great faith on flash/flex platform!
Thanks MS to force Adobe support RTL languages !!
You're welcome Mr Ted Sir :)
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Scott Barnes
Microsoft.
Ted - When you say MovieStar will support H.264 "without special streaming solutions" I am assuming you mean it will work with any generic RTSP streaming server and not just with the 'special' Flash Media Server.
That would be a massive enhancement at it would enable me as a developer to look seriously at Flash video for corporate in-house use and especially for streaming live TV feeds. Flash Media Server is not commercially viable for that situation as we would need to charge customers an extra $4,500 for FMS against using Windows Media Services which costs nothing.
I am currently developing with Flex as Silverlight is just not good enough (yet), but I am having to use Windows Media Player overlaid on top of the Flex app to play video.
Any chance their will be any sound enhancements in "Astro"? Since we now have HD it would be nice to have surround sound. HD without surround sound is going to hurt the viewing experience. I have been waiting forever to be able to create dynamic surround sound objects.
Flairjax
Let's be fair about it--AIR isn't out yet and it started in 2003 or so.
@Philip. Air != Silverlight. Flex/Flash == Silverlight. Microsoft doesn't have anything to compete with AIR, unless you count WPF, but then you couldn't code for cross-platform desktop apps.
VC-1 is not as propietary as you put it here. But I don't expect any fair statements from you anyway.
Florian
Florian,
Compared to H.264, Microsoft VC-1 is pretty darn proprietary.
Ted
Well one of the great thing about the Flash community is how open we are in a lot of things. Take Red5 for instance. A wonderful product created by really talented individuals that can be used to stream content. I'm excited to see how H.264 content will flourish once Adobe releases the specs for it so it can be used in projects like Red5
Hey Todd... I didn't mean to even say Silverlight was relevant--let alone comparable to anything from Adobe. I was only bringing Ted to task about what I infer from his opening paragraph (that MS takes forever to deliver something).
In fact, while I agree that having some competition is good, Silverlight is not the best example of significant competition. WPF, yes, WPF/E (Silverlight) no.
Philip,
Am I incorrect that SL 1.0 took 4 years to actually get to market?
Ted :)
RIGHT ON PHILLIP!!!! Your dead on!! Silverlight is not a competitor towards flash and wish people would stop saying that, WPF on the other hand is!!! And that is where the true competition lies!
How is VC-1 more proprietary than H.264? They are both standards that can be licensed from MPEGLA. They are both standards used in high-definition optical disc authoring, IPTV, on mobile phones...etc.
Please explain.
Who has patents on VC-1?
Who benefits from VC-1?
Whose runtimes, operating systems benefit in its use?
Who is paid royalties by MPEG LA?
NOT ADOBE!
With H.264 we are a licensee within Flash Player. Adobe does not receive revenue or royalties based on use of H.264. We adopted it to support an ecosystem of companies using it.
Just because VC-1 has a standards body seal or is licensed by MPEG LA doesn't mean it is open or non-proprietary. Plus MPEG and MPEG LA are wildy different organizations. One is a real standards body MPEG, one is business that issues licensed use of codecs on behalf of groups of patent holders, MPEG LA. Same first 4 letters wildly different business.
Part of the FUD here is that when you get into the weeds on 'proprietary' it gets all fussy and unclear.
My 2 cents,
Ted
SL 1.0 took 4 years or whatever you're saying... I'm not disputing that. But it's sort of a glass house thing when you throw rocks. All I was saying is that it sounded like you were saying "they took a long time" but in fact stuff takes a long time--including AIR just for an example.
"The Flex SDK and the Flex Builder IDE will ship in their 4th generation in early 2008 and I think it will again push us ever forward."
Hum, wait a minute. Flex Builder 3 is dued for winter 2007 right? Does it mean that FB4 will be released a few monthes after? :)
Emiloui,
Keep on dreaming. Things are slipping (and I wouldn't mind if that would bring us some kind of open data interface next to webservices & sockets because the current AMF specs are not really 'open' like in 'open source' I would say...).
Grtz,
Tom
Emiloui,
"4th generation" may refer to versions 1.0, 1.5, 2 and 3 - which makes a total of 4...
I don't mean to bash Microsoft but their strength lies more in copying ideas and bringing them out with as own products instead of being bold enough to release their own ideas. Which is fine.
It just means that Microsoft will have a hard time ever offering a version of silverlight that is more advanced than Flash. They can only succeed by using their market power and brand name to bring developers and business to away from Flash and to Silverlight.
My 1.5 cents
p.s. the post on Fleash Media Server nailed it! Adobe wants to make some money with itt, fair enough, but it is something that makes people angry at times (at least in my company).
Personally,
I am willing to wait for a performance driven platform (like Silverlight) with a mature set of a APIs (like Silverlight) and security in mind (like Silverlight)
Fact: C# is an ECMA and ISO standard. Though Flex can integrate with C#, it is not native (like Silverlight), any one that has written software knows that integration points are the pain points, which brings me to the next fact.
Fact: LINQ is powerful and simplifies the integration
Fact: VC-1 is bundled with EVERY Blu-Ray and HD-DVD drive. This is needs to be considered if you want to ensure future proofing your applications.
There are a large number of other facts, but time will tell. I for one am willing to be patient and develop RIA applications on a true developer platform.
To Anonymous:
patience may be a virtue but not in the RIA world. While you've been waiting to "develop RIA applications on a true developer platform" I've been using Flex to deliver real-world business apps for two years now. However, I'm not a zealot. Silverlight has caught my attention. I'm sure I'll explore it and perhaps use it for some of my projects. But to exclaim that Flash isn't a true developer platform is just silly. Try not to be such a jihadist.
I really don't understand this "willing to wait" concept. I have lots of work right now doing Flash. My clients' needs are being met and I'm getting paid. I'm NOT willing to wait--I'm doing stuff now. However, I'm also willing to adopt new stuff when it is ready for prime time regardless of who the vendor is.
I find it so ironic when people say things like "Microsoft's strength lies in copying ideas and bringing them out with as own products instead of being bold enough to release their own ideas" as if they really have a clue what they are talking about. Such polemics always comes from people who are predisposed to deny Microsoft credit for anything. What most of these people don't pay attention to is the approx. $7 billion in R&D budget, and the many products that stream out of MS because of their R&D. See this article on Microsoft research.
Among those who pay attention, Microsoft actually has a world class R&D department thanks to the amount they spend to fund it.
Yes Microsoft copies ideas, but that's because there are more ideas in the world than any one company can come up with. Microsoft are a competitive company and when they see someone else's idea take off they do what good smart copies do and they copy it. But that doesn't mean they don't have l0ts of other ideas of their own that they also productize. Frankly many of their failures have been their own ideas, but so have their successes. And only a fool would believe that is it possible to create new products that don't incorporate ideas from others.
BTW, before you just dismiss me as a Microsoft koolaid drinker, feel free to review my rants about Microsoft at my blog. I'm more critical of Microsoft than I am of most others but I also have a keen sense of fairness and it bugs me when I see Microsoft bashed where they don't deserve it.
I have a number of ex-MSFT friends and current employees and there is a common saying within Microsoft:
"Chase taillights, never blaze headlights"
Why take the risk of innovation when we can follow the market and be 100% dead on correct. MSFT is too large to guess at a market, they follow as it is a savvy business plan. Make no mistake, MSFT innovates but they do it within growing markets.
Although of late they seem to be more defensive of loosing their developer community than growing it. SilverLight is more about keeping MSFT devs in place. It provides hope that someday things will be as good as the Flash Player world we enjoy today.
My 2 cents,
Ted :)
"..Although of late they seem to be more defensive of loosing their developer community than growing it. SilverLight is more about keeping MSFT devs in place. It provides hope that someday things will be as good as the Flash Player world we enjoy today.."
Ok i bite on that one :P
Silverlight came from many origions and ideas have been fused to produce it. The main focus at present is providing developers the ability to get into the RIA space, where DHTML/AJAX dominates and provide a new barrier of rich control. On top of that, it's also about empowering media companies to reduce their ROI on having to manage video online (WMV and Quicktime/RealOne vs Silverlight). Video with WMV is significantly cheaper cost story? (end of discussion).
It's also about enabling the .NET community to continue on with their tooling / server-side solution story without having to adopt a new community, language and foreign tools to be introduced inside .NET development teams.
It also provides growth oppurtunity to empower non .NET developers & designers to approach problems from different angles using Microsoft technology (Dynamic Language Runtime is a great story!... BlueDragon folks are working on a CFML version of Silverlight, Moonlight folks built a Linux port and so on????)
Simply put - it's a gap that needed filling in the Microsoft ecosystem, and it's on track in doing it's job so far. It's not always just about Microsoft either!
This isn't a zero sum game :P you can use both.
That all being said, I liked your original points Ted in the post, the comments have degenerated into argumentitive points now :(
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Scott Barnes
RIA Evangelist
Microsoft.
Scott, I think you mean INCREASE ROI. Anyway, based on your description it has nothing to do with challenging Flash. If that's what you're saying, why then did MS hire so many Flash veterans to help? I'm not saying this is evil or even a case of people moving to work on the dark side. But, really, it's about competing with Flash--that seems obvious to me.
phillip: "INCREASE ROI" - how so? could you eloborate?
Silverlight competes with Flash on certain contexts whilst in others it doesn't. If Flash isn't a solution being considered, then is it really competing? (kind of like one of those "what is the sound of one hand clapping remarks" heh).
RIA is a complex beast, ever wondered why it's still quite a slow concept to not only grasp, get traction and large enterprise buy-in? Lots of variables at play, and typically a lot of Flash Vetrans have spent years burning their retina's via starting at Flash RIA concepts.. why not take that concept and apply it more broadly into other areas..
My point of contention isn't which of the two is better, but simply put Silverlight soley doesn't exist just to compete with Adobe Flash.. there is more to it then just one-uping Flash...
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Scott Barnes
RIA Evangelist
Microsoft.
Scott, you said "...it's also about empowering media companies to reduce their ROI". To which I suggested perhaps you meant "increase ROI". Maybe you want to reduce their return--who knows.
phillip: I'm such an ass :) yes you are correct. I blame lack of sleep and a newborn for that slipup :)
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Scott Barnes
RIA Evangelist
Microsoft
Scott,
Take it or leave it but to me it's clear that Microsoft has tried as long as possible to tie everyone to the Windows platform. Now that there's finally some decent competition (Adobe Flex) it became clear to Microsoft that they couldn't hold on any longer to their Windows-only approach and now they seem to be in a hurry (otherwise there wouldn't be any Silverlight 1.0 because that one really lacks functionality) to offer an alternative to Adobe Flex through Silverlight. Don't get me wrong: Silverlight will be THE alterntive to Adobe Flex and I'm still waiting for Google to adopt Adobe Flex (or to buy Adobe) because it's clear that future applications should be built using some kind of RIA technology. Currently in peoples minds RIA seems to be limited to internet applications that just can be done any other way but it won't take long before accounting applications etc will be built this way as well. My 2 cents of course :)
I am soooo sad to hear that Adobe is not allowing other servers such as Red5 to stream h.264 to the Flash client. I can't afford FMS and have no interest in developing with it.
This post has been removed by the author.
(Again, with modifications)
You have mentioned:
"It has been installed over the last 12 months over 2.5 Billion times, not downloaded, installed across 3 minor releases!".
That shows a potential in the web (for something to spreading) that will be used: by Adobe for Flash, or maybe by Microsoft for Silverlight; if it finds a smart enough way for spreading it.
I am not a fan of anything. Ruby is beautiful (almost love), F# looks promising and ...
Once I have tried to learn Flex and on it's community I came across just rude zealots. That disappointed me; badly!
I hope there will be somebody in Adobe that understands Microsoft really has a point (as an ASP.NET developer I will/should/must use Silverlight).
Personally I prefer an open source technology with a good community; which can be Flex.
Flex should be more accessible and should integrate more seamlessly into RoR, ASP.NET and other technologies. First time I'v said this everybody told me I am stupid and whenever you can use ColdFusion why should you even think about something like ASP.NET. Flex should be more pluggable and have extensions for .NET and RoR in it's SDK; something better than WebORB. Flex/Flash/Adobe are repeating the mistakes of Java: I have no rival! So applets had lost the ground; then Flash had an empty ground to grow. And when Microsoft announced .NET technologies, no one believed it will go anywhere soon (Except for Gartner).
And I hope a more well-behaved community for Flex.
Cheers! :)
First, I have a general distrust of MSFT. Everything is cross-platform/browser until they get critical mass. Then they add a "feature" that's closely tied/embedded w/their own platform. Pretty soon things don't work right unless you use their stuff. And their stuff doesn't work right unless you use their other stuff...
It seems we're just getting closer to desktop apps...Or java applets w/more intelligent sandbox on the client end (java webstart but less clunky to both run and deploy) and GWT with continuations and RTSP on the server end for RIA's in general.
Maybe one of these java based browsers could integrate webstart and JOGL to smooth out the client end....Use GWT with continuations to do client/server RPC communication, except no compiling to javascript for the client end. Maybe the load module just tells the java based browser what the main class is. The browser dynamically loads it and spawns a thread...You get swing, JOGL, JAVA3D, whatever for display and no polling for dynamic content. It would still allow the freedom to stream flash, etc....And you could still build client/server .jar files to stream any codec. The java browser could have a sandbox.jar to handle customizable security intelligently...Where am I off???
We like it or not Microsoft is there! I have not full trust in them too. My point was not insulting technologies. What I want is just: A good technology (like Flash) behaves as a good technology. What you say is right; but not mainstream. Someday, someone will bring down the M$. but it is not today. And today I bring the food on the table with Microsoftish things. Give me a better job and a more appealing environment (C# 3.0, LINQ, F# are very sexy to me); I will give it up all for the better!
Again no offense! I like Flex (and Flash) very much; but not in a blind way.
Cheers!
RIA is a complex Mafioso, continuously wondered why it's color print quite a transparent down concept to not only grasp, get traction and bull bravura buy-in? Lots of variables at vaudeville, and typically a lot of Flash Vetrans have beaten years burning their retina's via starting at Flash RIA concepts.. why not turn over that concept and dose it fresh incongruously into other areas..
My point of apology isn't which of the two is enhance, but simply put Silverlight soley doesn't extend immortal to strive with Adobe Flash.. there is likewise to it then equal one-uping Flash...
Flash platform it is used on all modern site, she first amongst all.