Microsoft has officially launched its Flash rival Silverlight .
Silverlight 1.0 provides cross browser support under both Windows and OS X, and in a partnership with Novell will also be available for Linux.
Silverlight was initially released to rave reviews in late April, with Michael Arrington saying that it would become “the platform of choice for developers who build rich Internet applications.”
Microsoft has rolled out a number of Silverlight powered applications since then, including Live Station, Popfly and Tafiti.
Microsoft has also announced that a number of content providers will be providing Silverlight enabled content online, including Entertainment Tonight, HSN and World Wrestling Entertainment.
For a full explanation of what Silverlight does read here.
(via Beet.tv)
The major barrier to users is that it requires a download. How can they go around it?
Yes, but Flash also requires a download… Anyhow it will be interesting seeing this being lifted off the ground. Flash have quite a few years ahead of Microsoft already!
Silverlight 1.0 ought to give Flash a run for its money, but Silverlight 1.1 is the one that will really rock the boat. Because under the hood it’s just the .NET Framework, we’ll eventually be in a situation where most new Windows applications only need a bit of UI tweaking to run within the browser on PC, Mac and Linux. Goodness knows how Microsoft thinks it’s going to make any money out of this, but it is definitely A Good Thing.
I don’t think that it matters that it’s a download. It’s once only and your average user when going to Silverlight enabled sites will just download the install the plugin when requested.
Finally! been waiting for this news for so long.
“the platform of choice for developers who build rich Internet applications.” I really doubt that! A large portion of the developers who currently use flash also use Macs and I really doubt they will switch over to an inferior product.
Do you really believe that we will see Silverlight players on YouTube? Of course not. The only real hype this product is receiving is from TechCrunch (Microsoft happens to be a TechCrunch Sponsor). Everyone else seems to have vastly different views!
Do you think sounds good?
Regards from Sapin
Do you think Microsoft will start integrating Silverlight into Visual Studio IDE?
there is quite a lof of questions around Silverlight and what it can really compared to AIR and JavaFX or How Ms will benefit from this, wel i want to make some points on it:
How Microsoft benefits from silverlight?
1.-next gen advertising: it not only allows apps to run in ways never seen before inside your browser, that is also true for advertising.
2.-Premium Content: if anyone has seen the Halo 3 site in silverlight, you should that is a 100% HD WMV advanced streaming video display you got running there from day one, just imagine what you are gonna see next year.
3.-Windows Live Suite: there is a private test by some developer that have been testing silverlight recreating Office 2007 in silverlight, the result of it, is way way way more advanced than anything you can get right now. silverlight would be the way to create the next versions of Live apps once the windows live suite final set is cleared.
4.-Windows Ecosystem Platform: the Surface interface is built on Silverlight, a experimental UI for WM7, it was hinted it could get integrated to zune 2 and even xbox later on. imagine what could you see that way..
and those are the ways Microsfot will be using silverlight and why it will be adopted. if you think it is not only more powerful, dynamic and faster than the competition, you just need to see the most impressive Silverlight apps so far:
1.-A WMP11 player recreated with silverlight and placed alongside the desktop version, and both showing the same features..
2.- A itunes recreation done completely in silverlight inside the browser
3.-a Windows Vista desktop demo done entirely in the browser that looks and works in a way that puts to shame any WebOS interface so far.
4.- a site serving 3 different video streams from Hd to standard to Mobile perfectly scaled.
5.-a visual earth viewer 3 times faster and lighter than a google map
6.-Surface photo manipulation in web
7.-livestation
8.-Tafiti
9.-popfly
10 Halo 3 HD media player display.
That from about 100 apps arond in the open to see and 50 other in development.
how will this perform in the area of competing with flash games?
Anyone curious of seeing games, apps and players done in Silverlight should visit the gallery at http://silverli...itygallery.aspx
This is a security nightmare waiting to happen. I’ll probably be the last person in the free world to install it.
I’m testing it and I’ll have to give it a 4 out of 10. This should not be a 1.0 product. Someone at Microsoft is getting ahead of themselves. While some of the apps are pretty amazing – HSN looks awesome, revolutionary, almost all the other demos are unusable and kill your browser session. I’m trying the mlb.tv demo via Firefox 2.0 / Silverlight / WinXP. The page loads and I can see the embed but it gets stuck before the video loads, no progress indicator, and all my other browser windows are frozen.
I’m a big MS fan, but this is one of my worst experiences with a ‘1.0′ product. Oh well, waiting for Silverlight 3.1.
A Silverlight Google Coop Search Engine
http://www.goog...6%3Apiljwfxcemo
@ajaxus: Take a look at the next gen VS2008.
I’ve been doing a lot of XAML/WPF development and love working with it. Silverlight is interesting, but I’m curious how the big sites are going to handle embedding and widgets. Will they just flat-out block Silverlight altogether until they figure out how to control it? If you’re looking to build a widget and get a lot of market penetration, it might be better to stick with Flash or JS at the moment…
Flash already has supported by many of mobile devices and as soon as all of the computers will be in the near future mobile ones, Microsoft has made not really right move. They will lost not only PC users but mostly all of mobile devices owners which for now are about hundreds of millions.
You know, i feel the competition will be a good thing. One thing’s for sure though, Mr. Gates guys are no sleepers, always up to something or another.
Two Words: Facebook Applications
Think about having MS Office running on Facebook.
They will get around making users decide to download it by bundling it with Service Pack 1 for Vista and possibly Service Pack 3 for XP. Because of the low upgrade numbers from XP to Vista, they will be forced to have a service pack 3 for XP that includes many fixes, oh and a convenient Silverlight application.
@BigMeep
Thanks, but I already had a look at VS 2008, what I meant is that like ASP.NET AJAX being integrated into the IDE will be useful to have also Silverlight – no additional executables to download etc.
In this way we can have one IDE, one tool to create all the applications we want.
As I see there will be a lot to do also with working on integrated Silverlight Designer tool.
Cheers
Oh the irony… An interview with the Silverlight development leader posted in Flash video. Too funny.
Mike
If you like drooling at moving pictures, Flash is great. If you use the Web to get information or otherwise accomplish something useful, Flash is a complete waste of time.
I expect the same will be true of Silverlight.
Late to the party.
Flash has years and years of development put into it, and a huge developer community. The player’s ubiquity and ease of download/upgrade is unmatched, and Adobe is *gasp* GOOD to their developers, provide great resources for them and adding great features to their tools. Not to mention, H.264 support in the next player release.
I’m waiting for Silverlight’s first security hole that exposes the entire OS to attack.
I don’t understand why MS would want to compete with Adobe in this market, they should be focused on their core competencies: operating systems and business software.
the web stack needs work and has its limits, but chucking it for a single-vendor standard is not the answer
even if you have an open source implementation, its still microsoft doing the architecting, with no input
don’t use flash. don’t use silverlight.
Despite all the silverlight bells and whistles, I would like to see more than just 30 search results using Tafitti.
Comparisons to Flash are crazy. You can’t run .NET, the full framework for developing modern desktop applications, within a Flash movie. You can do that with Silverlight. Full desktop apps, in your browser, without the destop and without installers.
Flash has happily been a staple in the designer and developer toolbox for quite some time; It’s about time someone took a run at it. Competition serves the greater good.
People say now that we can Ajax we can create desktop apps on the net, but any true Flash dveveloper will tell you that we have been doing that for years and going unnoticed. I dont think Silverlight will change the way i create apps, and i will be more then happy to argue my case with anyone that knows what they are talking about.
johnny
Avatar is sucking Microsofts dick
@Johnny: hah
It is called being informed. i know everything about AIR and JavaFx too.. but whatever, troll away.
@Johnny interesting you share the same name as me but i am sure that is all we share in common
Johnny just out of interest what have you created in Silverlight?
Silverlight is cool
Hey Johnnies, please debate this with technical details. Some of us would love to read it. thanks.
Here’s some linkage about Moonlight (Linux version of Silverlight) and the Novell-Microsoft collaboration, since this post is pretty skimpy on relevant links:
http://tirania....007/Sep-05.html
JavaScript does not perform to build fast desktop applications. Firefox Gecko is fastest possible and CPU clock rate have stopped increasing. There is a reason that MS Excel recalc engine is written in assembly code up to today. If you want fast, desktop apps (not clunky DHTML apps) you need to run natively, either by using something like Flash or Silverlight, which like mentioned above 1.1 using .NET will be the real kicker. MS has vastly better development tools than Flash. On top silverlight will run on Linux and Mac and .NET will support PHP, Python and Ruby. What else do you wish for?
Silverlight 1.0 is mainly for videos and animations. It is not an applications platform. Silverlight 1.1 is the version that will usher in a new era of Web applications, dare I say Web 3.0. Version 1.1 includes practically all of WPF with the notable exception of 3D, which means Microsoft is essentially giving away a large part of Vista for free.
“rave” reviews, or “paid” reviews? Silverpants (just look at that logo!) is too little too late, and will continue to be hampered by Microsoft’s insistence that it control the DRM, it control the codecs, it control everything, and more widely adopted standards be damned. Good for them? It’ll turn out as successful as whatever it was that Adobe tried to put up against Flash before the gave up and bought ‘em.
Dan Grossman… yeah, in Flash you can’t, but try in AIR…
The future is here people!
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
The Silverlight video downloads are blazingly fast (on Windows Vista). I hate to think coding it requires .NET, though…
Reading alot of the comments in this thread i have to laugh at the rediculous statements some of you are making. It’s clear that alot of you like the sound of your own voices over researching and making meaningful comments.
SilverLight and the team are in there for the long haul, they have built functionality in 1.0 that they believe will deliver rich media experiences. They didn’t sit down and decide to build functionality to match adbobe’s flash, that would be suicide (because it would take years to get there).
I believe they’ve reached there goal for version 1.0. I can create amazing video experiences in minutes.
I come from a background of understanding SilverLight and that’s why all your negative comments just make me laugh. Little do you know how powerful this technology is!
Be ignorant at your own peril!
RIA wants to be free.. Please do not tie it to a platform….
http://go2india...nts-to-be-free/