On Microsoft and Silverlight Last week saw a significant debate around Microsoft PDC announcements and the push towards HTML5, rather than Silverlight. Last week saw a significant debate around Microsoft PDC announcements and the push towards HTML5, rather than Silverlight. Here are a few links (in case you haven't read much about the topic) with personal comments. Before I get to those, however, let me state that I have a distinctive impression that Microsoft has a real lack of direction these days, and even at a recent conference with many Microsoft speakers I notice way more criticism towards the company than the average (which is quite low), but also totally different suggestions on the actual solution. That's not a good sign for me. But let me get back to the commented links: The first article predates the Silverlight discussion but it is very interesting for the Delphi camp. Tim Anderson wrote about " Lessons From Evernotes Flight From .Net ": the company moved one of the few WPF tools out there back to native Windows, using Visual C++. Of course, they should have rather used Delphi, to keep using the higher level and more sophisticated VCL model, rather than MFC, but the key point here is taht there are companies moving back from .NET client to native Windows. Certainly interesting, even if probably not a trend (also because native .NET clients are quite limited in numbers).

": the company moved one of the few WPF tools out there back to native Windows, using Visual C++. Of course, they should have rather used Delphi, to keep using the higher level and more sophisticated VCL model, rather than MFC, but the key point here is taht there are companies moving back from .NET client to native Windows. Certainly interesting, even if probably not a trend (also because native .NET clients are quite limited in numbers). Later, Tim wrote about Silverlight Dream Is Over , reporting from PDC the impression that Silverlgiht was notably missing, that Bob Muglia had mentioned a "strategy shift" to HTML5. A significant comment is that "if Microsoft itself is downplaying Silverlight’s role, it will tend to push developers towards Adobe Flash". Notice that over the last week there were even rumors about deals (or even a merger) between Adobe and Microsoft, and it is easy to guess that Silverlight vs. Flash might be part of it. In general, though, while Flash is gaining more and more platforms (including phone platforms), Microsoft is focused on Windows, Mac, and Windows Phone. Too little.

, reporting from PDC the impression that Silverlgiht was notably missing, that Bob Muglia had mentioned a "strategy shift" to HTML5. A significant comment is that "if Microsoft itself is downplaying Silverlight’s role, it will tend to push developers towards Adobe Flash". Notice that over the last week there were even rumors about deals (or even a merger) between Adobe and Microsoft, and it is easy to guess that Silverlight vs. Flash might be part of it. In general, though, while Flash is gaining more and more platforms (including phone platforms), Microsoft is focused on Windows, Mac, and Windows Phone. Too little. A second post from Tim from PDC was "Microsoft big on Azure, quiet on Silverlight": Microsoft demonstrated HTML5 Canvas hardware acceleration and has apparently the most HTML5 compatible browser: this is a big shift!

A separate personal comment is that using the keynote at SDC in the Netherlands, which focused on Silverlight, i had once more the distinct impression that too many Silverlight success stories relate to video streaming. Which is interesting, but it is also what HTML5 is really likely to kill...

Julian Bucknall of DevExpress (long time Delphi friends, but active producer of Silverlight components) has a blog post about the same topic, and like 100s of other blog post, "A Story for Halloween: Is Silverlight a Zombie". Julian comments: "WPF and Silverlight were two of the future tracks for .NET (the third being ASP.NET MVC) at PDC. Failure of either or both , will mean that .NET’s future will be tied to ASP.NET MVC". I'd say too little for a platform that was supposed to revolutionize development.

An official Microsoft blog post on " The Future of Silverlight " tried to do soem demage control and give a different spin to the whole matter, basically pointing out that HTML5 and Silverlight can work in parallel. Discussing standards versus "innovation", they claim HTML5 is adding support for features previously provided by plugins, later covering areas in which HTML5 won't be good enough. But this is very weak, and is can be read as "mission accomplished", so we can now drop or reduce the role of Silverlight. The excuse that you need out of browser applications is very weak, given there are other options and they don't address most phones, where applications are more and more popular. I'm biased but don't think Silverlight is the best replacement for a native Delphi Windows application.

" tried to do soem demage control and give a different spin to the whole matter, basically pointing out that HTML5 and Silverlight can work in parallel. Discussing standards versus "innovation", they claim HTML5 is adding support for features previously provided by plugins, later covering areas in which HTML5 won't be good enough. But this is very weak, and is can be read as "mission accomplished", so we can now drop or reduce the role of Silverlight. The excuse that you need out of browser applications is very weak, given there are other options and they don't address most phones, where applications are more and more popular. I'm biased but don't think Silverlight is the best replacement for a native Delphi Windows application. I found a very interesting comment in a reply to the blog post by a "former internal Silverlight developer at Microsoft", The Rise and Fall of Microsoft UX , saying that "I’ve been saying to a colleague that MS has an inconsistent strategy for years. Its like they have the classic “too big” syndrome where they have so many autonomous divisions with differing visions of the future, yet to the outside world they look schizophrenic." This is 100% my position . I don't know if Silverlight is alive or dead, if there will be further investments or not. But I don't care. If Microsoft changes stratagy every could of years (also within the ASP.NET realm), I won't suggest to many of my clients to do a two-years development project on any of these platforms, there are just too many chances that the technology will be obsolete before they ship. Truly native HTML can be hard, but it will certainly last longer and be a much better long-terms investment. The same can be said for most work you do in Delphi (but certainly not all of it).

, saying that "I’ve been saying to a colleague that MS has an inconsistent strategy for years. Its like they have the classic “too big” syndrome where they have so many autonomous divisions with differing visions of the future, yet to the outside world they look schizophrenic." This is . I don't know if Silverlight is alive or dead, if there will be further investments or not. But I don't care. If Microsoft changes stratagy every could of years (also within the ASP.NET realm), I won't suggest to many of my clients to do a two-years development project on any of these platforms, there are just too many chances that the technology will be obsolete before they ship. Truly native HTML can be hard, but it will certainly last longer and be a much better long-terms investment. The same can be said for most work you do in Delphi (but certainly not all of it). Finally, one of the best post I've read is "Silverlight Shenigans" by Ian Smith. One of the key points is "Yes, HTML5 and JavaScript do suck somewhat. The tooling isn't there either. And the real mistake Microsoft have made in rushing to announce the 'change in strategy' is that they've done so too early. The tools aren't there for HTML5, Microsoft haven't got them in place, and are clearly some significant time way from having them in place." Having written comments to the individual link, there is not much I have to add... other then reiterate that Microsoft seems to be lacking vision and long term support for its technologies. After dropping all possible Java support, VisualFox Pro (still a rather lively platform), the dynamic languages on top of .NET, moving their bloggers to WordPress, and not down playing the role of Silverlight, the overall trust in the development story at Microsoft is getting to a new low. But that's a personal opinion, of course.

20 Comments

On Microsoft and Silverlight Excellent comments Marco, and I agree on the position that MS seems to be caught in a revolving door, not quite knowing which exit to take. Silverlight is interesting but MS have too much history of binning previous "next big things". I'm staunchly against .Net in general, and the successive breaking releases of the .Net framework have only gone to prove me right and make life harder for .Net developers, and for MS to sell it as a stable platform. They've gambled big time by making Silverlight the requirement for Windows Phone 7 apps, it remains to be seen whether this gamble saves Silverlight, or kills the Windows Phone.

On Microsoft and Silverlight Marco - is it simply possible that the times of categorzing into APIs are finally over;) I personally just think, they don't want to make something wrong ... when launching the Phone ... SL: For me the Line Of Business thing (this year in spring) had little more to do with having XP spread but no (.net 4.x available for XP and now I don't if really a lot better wit SP SVP 4). I can imagine that M$ answer to - not to decide for the wrong technology - is to have no. Which leaves a bad taste on sthg. that is an interesting path in the future ...

On Microsoft and Silverlight Interesting that I had "Is Silverlight Dead?" on my Blog several weeks ago. Main point was that I really don't see substantial Silverlight apps and that even MS does not use it where it could - I mentioned their Office for Web solution - which is plain old HTML/CSS/JS. i got many opinoins that SL has its own market and would be doing just fine - it looks like MS now realized it's not ;)

On Microsoft and Silverlight I am not worried. I am sure Embarcadero will duly follow MS in every mistake it does.

On Microsoft and Silverlight And I find this lines very interesting: "The trouble is, even version 3.5 of WPF was not the first version, and it never sounds altogether convincing if, when a customer complains about your product, you tell them everything is fine in the latest and greatest build. Why did Microsoft not get this right before?" Change WPF with some Delphi technology, MS with Embarcadero, and this applies perfectlty to what happens everytime someone complains about something not working as it should in Delphi.

On Microsoft and Silverlight Seems to me that Tim Anderson is just willing Silverlight to fail, few others seem to keep repeating this mantra the way he does. Native code will not die anytime soon and neither will .net. People have been slow to adopt WPF/Silverlight because it is a big change from what they were used to, but it is a great platform for tomorrows hardware. Once all the hype about HTML dies down, we'll see what it really provides in real life.

Think to Ars Review - It's all about vision I think that conclusions are wrong. Silverlight I think that is a better technology developer wise but is not proven designer wise. In the same scale I don't think that no technology dies as of today or tomorrow that fast. I can say Visual Basic 6, Delphi 7, Visual C 6, it does not matter than NONE do include support for unicode strings, they are all alive. WPF in general is a good experimenting technology of MS (which right now tends to mature) that made it's place at least in developer's new software. Some things that we take for granted in WPF: theming, declarative UI via Xaml, accelerated UI, will be a part of Qt Quick (language will be named QML but will do in essence the same). MS simply use too much mindshare with it's IE and will "align" the the HTML5 wording, like Apple does, in it's tests that work for Safari. So Silverlight will become "big" with 1 year after IE9 is launched and the dust of news will be set, and SL5 will be the "next big thing"

On Microsoft and Silverlight Coming back to Luigis comment. Agree. This all reminds me a lot of the COM times. For sure at somewhat higher level. These days we had specific products where dependent on specific .dlls that broke other apps ... and now somehow something similar is back ... from the decision makers point of view - which direction to choose, but now it hurts. The same thing for customers and ITMs -> IBM at the decease. This is what Joel Spolsky described as fire and motion by MS in 2002. SAP did exactly the same during the last decade but a lot more and better - in Garfield's word: If you cannot convince them (the customers), confuse them. SAP did something funny, the sperated their products into commercial view and technical view where technical releases/versions of bundeled parts formed a version in sales speech. They had specific jobs that had to explain the customers their licencing system and every year the package changed as well as the licencing system ... Does this remind us of sthg.:)))) Vendor locked in legacy technologies .... Honestly ... I feel back in 2003 when SAP tried to serve the mobile via interpreted ABAP GUI descriptions on a virtual runtime on mobiles. No one wants this ... anymore. btw: Something funny ... addon for for IE8 to render IE6:). http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/11/unibrows -new-add-on-puts-ie6-in-your-ie8.ars

On Microsoft and Silverlight Aside from the bad communication made at PDC, I think we do have some lessons to learn here. Btw, Microsoft announced the full adoption of HTML, not killing Silverlight. Some folks then speculated over that, but they are wrong. 1. Announcing the support for a standard it doesn't mean you are killing another technology. 2. Silverlight is a huge success, installed on more than 60% of PCs. Considering this was the domain of Flash. 3. Microsoft is "finally" embracing HTML5. This is a good news for the software industry. Only with wide adoption you can have success for a technology 4. Silverlight was and is being used as HTML substitute, and this is wrong. It is a companion of HTML, not a substitute. 5. Evernote moved to native coding, good. That doesn't mean WPF or Silverlight are bad and should be dismissed. It just means it was not what Everenote was expecting from it. 6. Diversity diversity diversity. We all tend to say there must be one winning technology over the others. That's simply not true, there is space for everyone.

On Microsoft and Silverlight I for my part do not like the "feel" of silveright applications. I had to decide between going with Silverlight or some Javascript Library a la ExtJs, and ExtJS just felt better, more responsive and lighter. I prefer native for productivity apps and Google style Javascript for business apps. That I don't have to install anything and that it runs on Linux (which is my main machine nowadays) is another added bonus.

On Microsoft and Silverlight Hi, Marco! You came up with interesting topic which I think will have a long follow-up when to choose just HTML5 and when enrich your web app with Silverlight (probably using Delphi Prism). But could you make comments feed available for separate blog posts?

On Microsoft and Silverlight @Pierre "...That's simply not true, there is space for everyone. " -- no doubt!! My opinion is that HTML 5 will get a great share of Adobe Flash's usage, we just need to give it let's say half of year and we're going to see HTML 5 used more while flash will be used less and less and less and less, you get the point :-) I really hated flash all along, it uses too much CPU and gives back little. Hope to see animations, video(and/or) streaming using HTML 5 on mobile devices soon!!

On Microsoft and Silverlight Could certainly add more comments, and might blog further, but fully agree with the latest post by Tim Anderson: http://www.itwriting.com/blog/3399- understanding-the-silverlight-controversy.html

On Microsoft and Silverlight As I see it, the work put into the Expression tools and the other Silverlight and WPF tools, will most likely serve as a foundation for the HTML5 tools that linger in the pipeline. It makes sense to go for HTML5 on Azure and ASP.NET / Mono, but Silverlight still is the primary tool for Windows Phone 7, at least for the time being. I have always had questions to why there was a split between WPF and Silverlight - so who knows what will pan out there in the future.

On Microsoft and Silverlight Anyone who took few moments to use their brains and think deeper about "Silverlight Dying" titles (used by bloggers to increase the traffic on the site) knows that Silverlight isn't going anywhere. Silverlight will never replace the HTML and anyone who thought it will is pretty shallow-minded and needs to stop thinking exclusively. Get rid of single-all-purpose-tool mindset and open your mind for all the tools that are available to us and use them in projects where they fit in the best. The problem is that most devs are TOO LAZY to develop different skills for different purposes and expect the magic all-purpose stick. Well, the bad news is: IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN :) With WPF, Silverlight and announced commitment to HTML5, MS gave us great toolbox to pick from for different apps that we are building. .NET platform is not the perfect one, but with ADO.NET Entity Framework, WCF (and RIA Services), WPF for desktop, Silverlight for online LOB apps and rich media apps, and ASP.NET MVC for broadest reach, IT IS THE MOST COMPLETE PLATFORM AROUND, and anyone abandoning it because MS decided to extend it with better support for HTML5 is simply making a very stupid decision and doing harm to himself. I was Delphi dev for years and now I'm primary working in .NET/C#. But does it mean that I can't open Delphi if I need to build a native app? Of course it doesn't! But it would be stupid to stick to Delphi and miss all completeness that .NET offers. Anyone who decide to blindly stick to one tool will be caught in the same situation in which CLIPPER devs found them selfs years ago by blindly sticking to their favorite tool.

On Microsoft and Silverlight Hi Marco, Silverlight can´t be compared with HTML5. Look out there how many 3th parties like DevExpress, ComponentOne, TMS, Telerik and so many others are developing amazing components for silverlight. The possibility of using modern typed languages (including Delphi Prism!) and a modern, component based framework in SL is what makes it no comparable with HTML5. Other advantage is the design capabilities of Blend that has no par in HTML world. However, there will always be developers that need a more low-tech solution like HTML5. It´s the same difference as a developer using Java or DotNet to develop a Web app and many other (actually the majority) using dynamic, untyped languages. There are different tools for distinct usages. The problem today is that HTML is so weak and outdated that for making simple things like playing a video, a plugin is required. HTML5 will not change the fact that JavaScript is a weak, not typed and doesn´t have a standard serious template library for more sofisticated development.

On Microsoft and Silverlight Gustavo, sorry but I could not let this slip by. I almost completely disagree with you. There are very nice component libraries for JavaScript, on par with Silverlight components. JavaScript is quite a powerful language, although with limited tooling. You can do almost everything in plain web you do with plugins, but video (in the past...). Blend? Sorry, no. Saying HTML5 is low-tech is quite a nonsense to me. But you'll disagree, of course...

On Microsoft and Silverlight Anil - Silverlight is not dying ... I think this is not the message ... I think many of the .net followers still see little the Windows Everywhere. Windows is not everywhere but far away from nowhere nor WPF/E (Silverlight) or WPF. The only problem MS has is that .net 4 is available on 17 - 20% of PCs only and 1,2% of the PCs per month move to Win7 (this is more or less the new PCs). Silverlight runs with WinXP SVP 2 but .net 4.x requires SVP 3. This is the root cause of all this useless Silverlight pushing ... From a technical point of view I agree with you ... nothing will die and no one will escape because Windows is everywhere even now in this very room. They simply cannot use Silverlight for the Phone - Phones are not updated ... after a few month you would into enormous problems with backward compatibility ... updating the server can mean updating the phone you are done ... This whole WCF+ Silverlight which remains in the end currently ... I think this was meant for games .... and not for LOB apps on mobiles ... this is half the bill. ... look into the Phone 7 store ... dessert Gobi...

On Microsoft and Silverlight is it not funny a Guy who's knowledge even not exceed ".net" write about silverlight?

On Microsoft and Silverlight This is an response of the Silverlight future: http://neverindoubtnet.blogspot.com/2010/11/silverligh ts-bright-future.html





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