Will developers use Silverlight?
July 25, 2008 @ 2:19 pm in Industry, Silverlight
Today I received a comment on a Poll I created which asked the question “Will Flash developers learn Silverlight”? 20% said there was no chance unless Microsoft bought Adobe. Here is what the comment has to say.
“Nobody in their right mind will use SilverLight on the internet for a long time…..Until a user can just go to a page with SilverLight and use it, just like Flash, SilverLight won’t see the light of day on the Web….”
As one might imagine this response got me thinking, is making a user install a plugin a barrier to Silverlight adoption in the development community? Now certainly as a Silverlight MVP I am a bit biased, but there is no way anyone can convince me that the preexistence of a 4.6MB plugin has anything to do with developer adoption.
In my day job I manage a team of developers, mostly .NET but a few experts in Flash and Flex. Not to long ago I asked one of my senior Flash developers why he was so willing to learn Silverlight for a game project. His response was “Why would I not want to learn another tool that makes me even more marketable”.
Bravo! Silverlight isn’t about hunting down Flash in a global attempt to make it extinct. It’s not about one framework being better then the other. Its about choices. Choices push competition and competition pushed technology. Sure Microsoft might have its own agenda, but Silverlight gives developers and interactive sites a choice. If I had the time and energy I would love to learn every programing language on every platform. Boy would I have choices.
On 08-08-08 Silverlight 2.0 will be the technology used to broadcast over 2000 hours of the 2008 Summer Olympic games. If the last Olympics can predict anything, then NBC should expect over 4 billion television viewers in August. If even 10% watch some Olympics online, you are looking at 400 million Silverlight installs. I think it is fair to say that is a pretty nice jump on Silverlight market saturation.
Tagged as Editorial, flash, Silverlight
July 28th, 2008 at 12:10 am
Yes, I made the infamous comment, and it has nothing to do with what technology is best, or who rules the world, it has to do with customers.
Customers are the reason developers develop. If the customers users can’t have a seamless experience, they don’t want any part of it. They don’t understand why Flash just works, and SL requires their users to take steps to buy or use whatever they’re selling.
That’s just business. Now I do understand that the Olympics is coming up, and I’m really glad on one hand, but disturbed on another.
If users get seeded with BETA software, what happens when the BREAKING changes hit the next Beta/RC. It’s ugly user experience all over again, more downloads, less selling, less eyeballs, and more customer complaints costing time and money addressing the issues that shouldn’t exist.
My point is that SL is Intranet ready, we can control that environment, but it’s Internet unfriendly right now. Developers aren’t the important part of that equation, MS is.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:17 am
Hi Fallon,
I don’t understand how you can say that Flash JUST works and Silverligth requires a download.
Flash requires Adobe Flash Player “http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/about/”.
Silverlight requires the Silverlight runtime.
There is thus no difference?
Regards,
Christo Erasmus
August 27th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Hi Christo, maybe I should have been a bit clearer, although I thought that most web developers would get this.
Yes, Flash does require a download, but 90+ percent of internet users have ALREADY done this download. So Joe average user will go to a Flash site and experience it without any problem.
Unfortunately with Silverlight(SL), that isn’t the case, and if you’re running a business, that’s not anywhere near acceptable.
I think your confusion is between understanding the difference of having something, and having to GET something. Any analysis of internet users shows a large aversion to downloading new things except for a compelling reason.
That’s SL’s challenge, and seeding the world with beta software is risky, and the jury is still out on how it all comes together.
In the end, SL will be fine, we’re behind it 100%, but facts are facts.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Hi Fallon,
OK, we are on the same page!
August 28th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I still confused, Silverlight has been installed on 400 million or so machines with the Olympics. Didn’t see anyone complaining about the requirement to download something to watch the Olympics online (which I preferred).
September 4th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Well the issue isn’t that they downloaded it to watch the olympics, but that they downloaded a beta version of silverlight 2. Once it hits final release those same users could potentially be prompted for another download when they head to a silverlight sight. The silverlight plugin doesn’t seem to handle multi versioning very well, and the older versions are still available. It seems that there should be a single “Get Silverlight” link for websites, which provides the latest client file that would need to be fully backwards compatible. When I’ve already downloaded silverlight TWICE I don’t want to be prompted to download an earlier version, and all this potentially redundant downloading has put me, both as a developer and a consumer, off silverlight.
Incidentally it wouldn’t equal 400 million installs, as the nbc olympic coverage was only available in the US. I could only watch olympic video online through my local yahoo page (au.yahoo.com), and not using silverlight.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:17 am
OLYMPICS
I think Microsoft dropped the ball big time with the Silverlight content. I honestly did not see too much of it. There was a big banner on msn.com that had the day’s highlights. Some videos where in Silverlight and there was one big page to load the videos on. Even the banner on msn.com (which I don’t think was part of the NBCOlympics) could have had some animations, fading effects. It was something that web 2.0 ajax only apps can do better.
Overall the nbc pages were designed by a bunch of noobs. For example, for Volleyball I couldn’t get the scores..I saw the schedule and then saw the game and then had to click again to see who won. Who designed this? A lot of the tournament type sports, there was no simple bracket to see who was in who qualified further. It was a COMPLETE mess. Other than basketball of course (because that is the only sport in the Olympics).
I think Silverlight could have been used much better! It definitetly did not put Silverlight as a RIA platform.
Silverlight as another option
I think your point is valid and I agree. I just simply do not see Flash/Flex being able to compete with Silverlight in the next couple years on an enterprise level. I think Flash/Flex will be the RIA choice for the “masses” while Silverlight will rule the Enterprise. Silverlight already has ties into some very powerful Microsoft offerings: .net, wcf, data services. Imagine this in Silverlight 3.0+ tied into SQL Server Reporting Services for visualization or Silverlight 3.0 web parts inside SharePoint or Virtual cube slices (cub) for SSAS or even ProClarity. What about the semantic web (3.0) with Mesh?
You are talking some very serious cool Web 3.0/RIA possibilities that ONLY Microsoft can offer. Flash/Flex are already integrated with the CS Suite…what else does Adobe have to offer the enterprise?!
It was funny the quote you mention about Adobe to be bought by Microsoft. I think Apple has to be seriously considering it. Market Cap wise its doable and Apple’s shares have sky rocketed so much that they can do this “cheaply”. Google is going to be using Web 2.0 and JavaFX for their Android platform. Microsoft has Silverlight for their Mobile PCs. Apple has their thing for the iPhone, but it would be really nice to bridge that with Adobe Flash/Flex and bring some more value beyond the iPhone/iPod and into the Mac areas.