{"id":3395,"date":"2010-11-02T00:37:25","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T23:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/3395-microsoft-pledges-commitment-to-silverlight-but-is-it-enough.html"},"modified":"2010-11-02T00:37:25","modified_gmt":"2010-11-01T23:37:25","slug":"microsoft-pledges-commitment-to-silverlight-but-is-it-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/3395-microsoft-pledges-commitment-to-silverlight-but-is-it-enough.html","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft pledges commitment to Silverlight – but is it enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft\u2019s president of Server and Tools Bob Muglia has posted a response<\/a> to the widespread perception that the company is backing off its commitment to Silverlight, a cross-browser, cross-platform runtime for rich internet applications. He is the right person to do so, since it was his remark that \u201dOur strategy with Silverlight has shifted\u201d<\/a> which seemed to confirm a strategy change that had already been implied by the strong focus in the keynote on HTML 5 as an application platform.<\/p>\n

Muglia says Silverlight is in fact \u201cvery important and strategic to Microsoft\u201d. He confirms that a new release is in development, notes that Silverlight is the development platform for Windows Phone 7, and affirms Silverlight both as a media client and as \u201cthe richest way to build web-delivered client apps.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what is the strategy change? It is this:<\/p>\n

\n

When we started Silverlight, the number of unique\/different Internet-connected devices in the world was relatively small, and our goal was to provide the most consistent, richest experience across those devices.  But the world has changed.  As a result, getting a single runtime implementation installed on every potential device is practically impossible.  We think HTML will provide the broadest, cross-platform reach across all these devices.  At Microsoft, we\u2019re committed to building the world\u2019s best implementation of HTML 5 for devices running Windows, and at the PDC, we showed the great progress we\u2019re making on this with IE 9. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The key problem here is Apple\u2019s iOS, which Muglia mentioned specifically in his earlier interview:<\/p>\n

\n

HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple\u2019s) iOS platform.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Muglia\u2019s words are somewhat reassuring to Silverlight developers; but not, I think, all that much. Silverlight will continue on Windows, Mac and on Windows Phone; but there are many more devices which developers want to target, and it sounds as if Microsoft does not intend to broaden Silverlight\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n

Faced with the same issues, Adobe has brought Flash to device platforms including Android, MeeGo, Blackberry and Google TV; and come up with a packager that compiles Flash applications to native iOS code. There is still no Flash or AIR (out of browser Flash) on Apple iOS; but Adobe has done all possible to make Flash a broad cross-platform runtime.<\/p>\n

Microsoft by contrast has not really entered the fight. It has been left to Novell\u2019s Mono team to show what can be done with cross-platform .NET, including MonoTouch<\/a> for iOS and MonoDroid<\/a> for Google\u2019s Android platform.<\/p>\n

Microsoft could have done more to bring Silverlight to further platforms, but has chosen instead to focus on HTML 5 \u2013 just as Muglia said in his earlier interview.<\/p>\n

Whether Microsoft is right or wrong in this is a matter for debate. From what I have seen, the  comments on Microsoft\u2019s de-emphasis of Silverlight at PDC have been worrying for .NET developers, but mostly cheered elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The problem is that HTML 5 is not ready, nor is it capable of everything that can be done in Silverlight or Flash. There is a gap to be filled; and it looks as if Microsoft is leaving that task to Adobe.<\/p>\n

It does seem to me inevitable that if Microsoft really gets behind HTML 5, by supporting it with tools and libraries to make it a strong and productive client for Microsoft\u2019s server applications, then Silverlight will slip further behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft\u2019s president of Server and Tools Bob Muglia has posted a response to the widespread perception that the company is backing off its commitment to Silverlight, a cross-browser, cross-platform runtime for rich internet applications. He is the right person to do so, since it was his remark that \u201dOur strategy with Silverlight has shifted\u201d which … Continue reading Microsoft pledges commitment to Silverlight – but is it enough?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,34,58,67,77,80,96],"tags":[104,158,422,462,499,586,825],"class_list":["post-3395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-net","category-adobe","category-flash","category-multimedia","category-professional","category-silverlight","category-software-development","category-web-authoring","tag-net","tag-apple","tag-google","tag-html-5","tag-ios","tag-microsoft","tag-silverlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}