Microsoft “rebooted the Web” yesterday
One way you can tell how good a product launch is by waiting for the day after effect. Are people still talking about it? Still excited? Does it cause people like Steve Gillmor to change opinions?
The answer after reading all my feeds is yes. And the real story hasn’t even been written. Last night I asked Scott Guthrie whether he thought Google would use Silverlight. He told me he thinks they’ll have to at some point.
In the past, I would probably have written that off as some kind of corporate hubris. But not this time.
I can see Microsoft coming at Google with a raft of stuff built on top of Silverlight. For end users at home it’ll look slicker, feel better, and have far better video quality than anything Google can throw at Windows users with YouTube/Flash/etc.
Is it enough yet to say that Microsoft has an internet strategy? Not quite.
But the foundation has been built.
It’ll be interesting to see how Mozilla, Adobe, Google respond cause what Microsoft did yesterday can’t be escaped. In the hallway I met Jeff Prosise, co-founder of Wintellect. He told me that yesterday will be remembered as the day Microsoft rebooted the Web. Hyperbole? Maybe, but don’t miss why he’s excited: he’s going to be able to take his .NET skills and make Web experiences that are going to be far beyond what you can do with HTML and AJAX.
I also asked Scott Guthrie if the Office team was going to use Silverlight to bring us an online Office. He gave the corporate-PR answer, but the smile on his face said all that needed to be said. Microsoft isn’t about to let Google take over the Office space and now they have the platform to build upon and keep up with Google’s PhDs.
If you haven’t been reading my link blog, now would be an excellent time to start. I’ve put 38 articles, great stuff there much of which you won’t find on Digg or TechMeme, including the best writeups on the Microsoft announcements that I could find.
UPDATE: Laszlo says “don’t forget about us.” I think they are now in play for an acquisition from Google.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:06 am
Any talk of designer support for mobile apps with Silverlight at Mix? Seems like MS has been pretty quiet on this.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:15 am
We have to wait to see the effects of this announcement. It seems premature to make deductions so early.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:21 am
Your comments in relation to Office in the browser follow on from my thoughts about Silverlight bringing Windows in a browser (http://colinizer.com/2007/04/30/silverlight-windows-in-a-browser/) and on lots of other platforms. If you have Windows in a browser, you can start doing Windows like application to a point.
I’m not sure a full Office product is that likely, but I’m sure things building on top of Office Live could emerge quite quickly.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:24 am
P.S.
There are a ton of new screencasts on Channel9, but nothing in the interview section other than the one interview with Scott Guthrie. And nothing really on 10.
If people are still talking about Silverlight today, it could also be that there weren’t really any other good announcements - Silverlight was the keynote. I was hoping for some releases, like a released SDK for Live ID integration into desktop and web applications, or CardSpace cards for one’s Live ID.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:33 am
[...] forget about us.” I think they are now in play for an acquisition from Google. [Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger] Posted: May 01 2007, 12:32 PM by Jeff Bishop | with no [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 11:42 am
I think people are talking and will continue to talk because very little substance has truly emerged. People have a ton of unanswered questions. Most of what has been written is devoid of much substance past typical PR material.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I don’t read as many feeds as you, but I’m not seeing many top talent developers convinced by what they’ve seen so far.
I think almost everyone believes that Silverlight will be a well-executed, and well-designed technology. I think very few believe that Microsoft as a company is committed to the development of cross-browser, cross-platform technologies. Actually, I’m not even sure Scott Guthrie believes that…
May 1st, 2007 at 12:16 pm
A Flash ripoff, spinning a ripped-off codec, this while trying to look hip and cool, in that oh-so-fake Microsoft way about it.
Cue up the stump Microsoft stump speech: But it’s not a Flash killer, yeah, yeah, and the Zune wasn’t meant to take on the iPod…Expression Studio tries to do Adobe Creative Suite, Expression Web dons Dreamweaver hats. Just pony up and admit it.
If you only offer the same functionality, why invest double time? You have to be greater in an order of a magnitude, and that I don’t think that message made it thru the PR fog thicket.
And Steve’s “Office is dead” was crazy fantasylandish anyways, doesn’t mean a thing per MIX, when his brain starts to orbit closer to Earth.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:18 pm
[...] Robert Scoble’s take on it….there are hundreds more. Fascinating. View article… Published Tuesday, May 01, 2007 3:18 PM by jerman of the board Filed under: Marketing, [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Mr. Scoble - In the land of Microsoft where the mountain was built on the scalability of “good enough”… I’m wondering if Google’s “good enough” scale might not reign supreme at the end of the day? OK, so MS has a better codec! Tomorrow it will be someone else… DivX, Apple, some unknown outfit from a formerly Russian state…
After all, isn’t Mr. Ballmer pooh, poohing Apple’s “boutique”/high polish/low share approach while his folks are creating an apparently as slick Silverlight approach. I doubt through all of this, Google’s sitting still for Redmond to take pot shots at them :)
May 1st, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Well, after having spent most of the day playing with the Silverlight stuff I can say for sure that Blend/Design are far from being as refined as Adobes tools. The UI have a certain crude feeling (the UI:s look like they where built in WPF?).
It is aso hard to get the same attention to detail in graphics etc. you get in Flash/Flex.
No doubt this will be fixed. And I hope that this announcement makes Adobe wanna kick some ass!!
Now. Where is Google and Apple in all this? Come on, give Adobe a helping hand! Let us see some real competition for the new “media internet”.
I will certainly keep using the MS stuff in addition to the Adobe tools. MS shops will probably require it and C# is surprisingly close to Actionscript. But for now I’ll use the Adobe tools.
For the server stuff I’ll stick to C++. It independent and works well in both .Net and on Linux and runs in circles around C# and Java.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
What a stupid headline.
If Microsoft had rebooted the web, it would mean that very soon nobody would be using HTML anymore.
Come on, you often back up your claims with a bit of history. Here is a bit of history you might to hear : every bit of Microsoft Silverlight proposition is in fact a rehash of Java “write once, run everywhere” that we were given back in 1995.
Yes, 12 years ago. Things take time to mature over in Redmond…
And Java failed because a company starting with M and ending with T fucked with Sun, produced a highly Windows optimized and therefore incompatible run-time. Ended up in court and the rest is history. The funny bit is that Microsoft optimized Java runtime and associated IDE (VisualJ++) is pretty much .NET and Visual Studio. Just 12 years ago…
May 1st, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Ah yes. Nevermind the fact that Java, as a “write once, run everywhere” platform, was dead on arrival long before Microsoft had anything to say about it. The truly awful performance of Java, coupled with its inability to create anything approaching a compelling user interface, doomed it from the start. It was overhyped, and when the reality sunk in it created a hangover the precluded anyone from wanting to wait a decade for the tools and the platform to mature.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I wonder what Google contributed to the tech world. Everybody loves google search engine which is done by google CEOs. Apart from this rest of them are all small dinky apps done by google PHDs. I do not see any major contributions from google to the tech world. They are happy with their ad money and cool look. I love Microsoft because they compete (they win or loose, you decide…) and they reinvent stuff all the time. WPF and Silverlight are great example.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Microsoft rebooted the web? Why, did they crash it? Sorry, couldn’t resist.
What I’m not sorry about is that I don’t trust Microsoft. I don’t trust Ballmer. I don’t trust Gates. I don’t believe that the old Microsoft - the one that lied, cheated, and stole its way into becoming a monopoly has turned over a new leaf. I don’t believe that Microsoft has any intention of keeping Silverlight platform agnostic. I do believe that Silverlight is Microsoft’s last gasp effort at taking over the internet.
The questions are: a) will we blindly believe Microsoft’s promises as so many of us have in the past? and b) can Microsoft’s evil plans be put into place before the brain drain kills it off?
May 1st, 2007 at 1:20 pm
I just finished watching yesterday’s keynote (at VistaMix.com). I was very impressed. I particularly liked the Mac stuff, in fact much of what was shown was on the Mac, so as to prove a point to the likes of Welch. ;) I especially liked the cross-platform remote debugging.
I’d say it was one of the best Developer Conference keynotes I’ve ever seen. Made Jobs’ WWDC keynotes look silly by comparison (because, despite the acronym WWDC, Jobs’ WWDC keynotes are aimed at consumers much more than devs; you never see Apple devs actually coding and debugging in a keynote).
May 1st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
“I think very few believe that Microsoft as a company is committed to the development of cross-browser, cross-platform technologies. Actually, I’m not even sure Scott Guthrie believes that…”
Yeah, that’s why so many of the keynote demos were done on a Mac, because Microsoft doesn’t care about cross-platform tech. Open your eyes! This is a new day, and a new way for MS. Get used to it or get run over by it. :p
May 1st, 2007 at 1:47 pm
“@11. This is a new day, and a new way for MS.”
Great. In that case, next week we can expect:
o First-class Silverlight support on Linux and Solaris, with simulataneous releases of new versions on all platforms.
o Visual Studio rewritten on Silverlight, so that Visual Studio runs everywhere Silverlight runs - Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris etc.
o Visual Studio (full version including profiler, mobile development, integrated multi-language support etc) given away for free.
o Full .NET on the server side released for Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris
o All of .NET and Silverlight Open Sourced under the GPL
Will that happen? Well, no…. and that kinda indicates that Microsoft isn’t serious about “write-once, run anywhere” cross-platform, wouldn’t you say?
Or… is releasing a closed source browser plug-in on two OSes being “serious about cross-platform” in your book?
May 1st, 2007 at 1:57 pm
”
o Visual Studio (full version including profiler, mobile development, integrated multi-language support etc) given away for free.
o All of .NET and Silverlight Open Sourced under the GPL”
How are these 2 relevant to ‘Write once and run anywhere’?
“Great. In that case, next week we can expect:”
I have some inside scoop on something else you can also expect next week -
1) IPod works with non iTunes stores
2) iTunes for Linux
3) Google and Apple contributing something *significant* to open source - say the OS in iPhone and PageRank algorithm
4) Adobe open sources Flash engine
May 1st, 2007 at 2:08 pm
VC-1 a ripped off codec?? wow thats a pretty clueless comment. Robert you still here? wanna see silverlight live publishing plugin for livewriter?
May 1st, 2007 at 2:18 pm
James: sorry, I was out having lunch with Dan Appleman who was raving about Google’s custom search engine. He built this with it: http://www.searchdotnet.com/ — search engine for .NET (er, Silverlight) developers.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:18 pm
VC1 is not some unknown, unused ripped off Codec. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray both have it as part of their standard. IF you have ever done any HD content delivery for end users you would realize the Aweseome Quality of the the Codec and guess what it is FREE! Comes with a great SDK, encoder, Server package that are also free. Flash not so much.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Ripped off mpeg-4, jumbled with a blocking twist, standardized it with SMPTE, kicked to mpeg-la for licensing, and bingo VC-1. But this is an old tired debate.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Yes, VC-1 is a rippof of mpeg-4 part 2. It has 2 unique blocking algorithms that Microsoft contributed. Otherwise, every other single patent corresponds to mpeg-4 part 2 held by everyone else in mpegla. Microsoft is now trying to figure out how much back pay they must fork over for distributing codecs for wmv below the cost of VC-1 which they own very little of. That’s right: Microsoft has to pay to get people to use wmv. VC-1 is fine, it has a nice blocking algorithm, but don’t use WMV and don’t say it’s not a ripoff. It most certainly is.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:08 pm
A. What about Dell customers? Like me
http://news.com.com/Dell+picks+Ubuntu+for+Linux+PCs/2100-7344_3-6180419.html
B. Flash and silverlight are vector drawing display surfaces for browsers. You think Flash has some kind of limit?
Check out this open source VNC client, remote desktop for the hillbillies, open source, and completely written in flash.
http://www.whenpenguinsattack.com/2007/03/07/vnc-client-in-flash/
http://www.darronschall.com/weblog/archives/000192.cfm
If you can remote into your windows or Linux desktop via flash with VNC drawn in surface vectors, you can sure as hell do anything DX can do as well.
There was a managed code 3d framework back in 1998 for Java. You could make 3d video games, video, and a multitude of stuff work in a browser surface. Nobody used it. The simplicity of flash studio interface is what made flash.
Not being negative, just making a point.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Some people just can’t take yes for an answer… Microsoft presents a cross-browser app platform that will run on 98% of the world’s desktops and the response from the peanut gallery is “but what about Linux???” I guess Microsoft just can’t consider themselves successful until they’ve captured that oh so very lucrative 2%.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:23 pm
[...] like Scoble is pretty excited by Microsoft and what he’s been seeing at MIX 07. This seems to turning out [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 4:10 pm
@25 heh, I noticed the same. All of a sudden people crying about lack of Linux support yet hail iTunes as a wonderful success…and yet it doesn’t run on Linux as far as I know. I’ve learned to roll my eyes at these people.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure that people that use Linux aren’t interested in using MS technology anyway…right? Right? hehehe.
By the way, Miguel de Icaza of Mono fame has indicated that they’ll build Silverlight support for Linux themselves, so have no fear ABM’ers.
May 1st, 2007 at 4:23 pm
“Or… is releasing a closed source browser plug-in on two OSes being “serious about cross-platform” in your book?”
Works for me! I couldn’t care less about Linux. And guess what - 98% of the populace couldn’t care less either. Know that.
Adobe only recently released Flash 9 for Linux. They’re not choir boys either. iTunes doesn’t run on Linux at all. Linux has to prove a decent ROI before anyone takes it seriously on the client side.
Oh, and how come some of your litmus test requires giving things away for free? Microsoft is a business, not a charity. And save it, the “give software away for free and charge for support” model is horrible as it gives incentive to produce inflexible, unpolished, difficult to use products, because you rely on support. If you create the proverbial “perfect” app (flexible, powerful, reliable, easy to use, such that no support is required), you don’t make any money.
I sense much fear and denial from MS bashers today. LOL
May 1st, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Where are the development tools then?
What’s that, I have to PAY for them? Not only do I have to run Windows to do development, but I then have to give even more money to Microsoft for the privilege of producing code that enhances their platform?
Forget it. Come back when Visual Studio is free, and runs on Mac… or when there’s an Eclipse plug-in I can download.
May 1st, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Neil - for a free Visual Studio, you should check out VS Express.
May 1st, 2007 at 4:52 pm
sriram @ 31, It’s not like MS bashers didn’t know VS express is free. Note the stuff inside parantheses in the following line. It’s just another point to shout…
“o Visual Studio (full version including profiler, mobile development, integrated multi-language support etc) given away for free”
May 1st, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Neil, you’re not interested in this anyway. Stop frontin’.
May 1st, 2007 at 5:10 pm
http://www.ideastorm.com/
Here’s roughly 132k cares.
Enough to make dell offer desktop Linux with Ubuntu.
There are about a million on digg.com who care as well.
http://digg.com/linux_unix/The_embargo_is_over_Ubuntu_will_be_officially_supported_on_Dell_computers
Read digg and let the comments of the younger generation sink in. They are not interested in the comeback of windows 95. They are Microsoft aware consumers and they’re going to take over soon.
iTunes used to have a compatible app for Linux called Musique written in Python. But Apple changed the protocol and broke it.
VS express is free, but the stack it makes applications for is not. The VS express itself is not free as in freedom.
Silverlight could have been passable had they written a Linux firefox client, but they chose not to. I bet it doesn’t fare very well.
May 1st, 2007 at 5:20 pm
“I bet it doesn’t fare very well.”
Beer, you misspelled “hope” as “bet”. ;)
As for digg, just a less civilized version of slashdot. Who cares? Besides, digg is Mac-land, and Silverlight supports it. Diggers might not like it, but they’re getting support.
May 1st, 2007 at 5:24 pm
[...] Steve Gillmor gives it a thumbs up and says “the engineering behind this is stunning.” Robert Scoble, who’s angry at Microsoft for not giving him a free pass to the Mix event, says [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 5:27 pm
[...] posted a followup to the Silverlight news yesterday doing a pretty good rundown of things. I’ve enjoyed seeing [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 5:34 pm
“But Apple changed the protocol and broke it.”
And Apple’s profits went south?
“Enough to make dell offer desktop Linux with Ubuntu”
Game on..Let’s talk about how “great” Linux is, after this. The following would be interesting to watch
1) Out of the box experience of a Linux installed DELL box (or laptop)
2) Supportability of Linux and how Dell handles it
3) not the least..actual consumer demand. No, i am not talking about signing a petition or adding another comment. Let’s see how is the actual demand in the ‘best buy’s and ‘circuit city’s…(this is the second time dell is offering this)
For very long Linux has been up on a “what if” plank during a Linux Vs Windows shootout. Finally we can actually see how this turns out…
May 1st, 2007 at 6:01 pm
As an exercise in learning Silverlight, I created a website that implements the Office 2007 Ribbon UI at http://xmldocs.net and I found that using Silverlight in conjunction with DHTML you can do a pretty slick interface. I am very optimistic about Silverlight, especially because now I am Microsoft employee. (I started on the project before I joined Microsoft.)
May 1st, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Miguel just committed to having a Silverlight implementation on Linux by the end of the year: http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9714669-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
It will use the Mono runtime.
So now Silverlight runs everywhere Flash runs.
May 1st, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Ah, the Anti Microsoft camp comes out in force(Somewhat)to bash this latest anouncement, I could care less about Linux, I want Mac compatability and it looks like we’ll get it and that just fine by me.
May 1st, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Imagine this on a blue background:
A problem has been detected and the Internet has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
BUGCODE_ISS_SERVER_TOO_SLOW
If this is the first time you have seen this Stop error screen, REBOOT THE INTERNET. If this screen appears again follow these steps:
Check to make sure there hasn’t been a catastrophic nuclear event. This is most likely your fault. Do not call Microsoft until you have attempted the following….
May 1st, 2007 at 7:25 pm
This is a new day, and a new way for MS. Get used to it or get run over by it.
IE was released on Mac during its first few versions. So was Windows Media Player. Where are they now?
You’re awfully gullible if you think this is “a new day, and a new way for MS.”
May 1st, 2007 at 7:31 pm
@#40:
Joe, here is a quote from the macrumors forum. You would do well to take it to heart:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=301265
“This needs to be killed early….
Its just another MS attempt to kill off rival standards - be it Flash, GoogleVideo, YouTube, Quicktime etc etc.
Avoid like the plague, or we will all suffer later….”
—-
Comments seem to be running 2 to 1 against, which is rare in this venue for anything that supports Apple computers.
May 1st, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I just finished watching yesterday’s keynote (at VistaMix.com). I was very impressed. I particularly liked the Mac stuff, in fact much of what was shown was on the Mac, so as to prove a point to the likes of Welch. I especially liked the cross-platform remote debugging.
Unlike you, I don’t confuse a dog and pony show with a long - term product strategy. We’ll see in a couple of years, what’s really going on with this, or will it turn out to be another Rotor/Active X on the Mac.
1) IPod works with non iTunes stores
Done. Download in AAC/MP3/AIF, and they’ll work fine with an iPod.
Some people just can’t take yes for an answer… Microsoft presents a cross-browser app platform that will run on 98% of the world’s desktops and the response from the peanut gallery is “but what about Linux???” I guess Microsoft just can’t consider themselves successful until they’ve captured that oh so very lucrative 2%.
No, it’s because some of us remember all the other cross-platform bullshit dog and pony shows Microsoft has put on before, only to abandon it once they got the requisite spike in people tying themselves to Microsoft. Microsoft spent a decade blatantly bullshitting the computing world. It’s going to take more than a demo and a beta release to counter that, ESPECIALLY when most of the people who did the bullshitting are still in charge.
By the way, Miguel de Icaza of Mono fame has indicated that they’ll build Silverlight support for Linux themselves, so have no fear ABM’ers.
Funny how Microsoft keeps avoiding Mono, isn’t it.
Oh, and how come some of your litmus test requires giving things away for free? Microsoft is a business, not a charity.
The Xbox says they’re perfectly willing to burn BILLIONS if they want to.
iTunes used to have a compatible app for Linux called Musique written in Python. But Apple changed the protocol and broke it.
Meh. Once the rest of the companies pull their heads out and drop DRM, then iTunes isn’t as much of an issue.
For very long Linux has been up on a “what if” plank during a Linux Vs Windows shootout. Finally we can actually see how this turns out…
Only on the desktop. In the server room, Linux is doing more than quite well, hence Microsoft spending billions on anti-linux server PR.
As an exercise in learning Silverlight, I created a website that implements the Office 2007 Ribbon UI at http://xmldocs.net and I found that using Silverlight in conjunction with DHTML you can do a pretty slick interface.
Unusable in Safari with the latest beta Silverlight plugin, works in FF
May 1st, 2007 at 7:35 pm
[...] stuff has definitely got me exited. There is a lot of talk about it. Robert Scoble says “Microsoft rebooted the Web“. Michael Arrington says, “it makes Flash/Flex look like an absolute toy“. [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Hey, my blog runs on silverlight! Watch:
http://www.methegeek.com/
May 1st, 2007 at 7:43 pm
[...] Scobleizer: Microsoft “rebooted the Web” [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 7:46 pm
“Only on the desktop. In the server room, Linux is doing more than quite well, hence Microsoft spending billions on anti-linux server PR.”
Servers are managed/used by someone who knows what they are doing. So, they would be able to keep the box crash-free with no crapware or processor hogging ‘always on’ stuff etc. I want to see how Linux fares when average joe starts installing 5 different toolbars in the browser.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:16 pm
@38
“3) not the least..actual consumer demand. No, i am not talking about signing a petition or adding another comment. Let’s see how is the actual demand in the ‘best buy’s and ‘circuit city’s…(this is the second time dell is offering this)” Um…. I AM A DELL CUSTOMER. I posted pics of me erasing XP and installing Red Hat on C9 the day I got my 2nd Dell laptop. I know some people here will remember that post.
2ndly. You must not be from round these parts. Dell does not sell computers at circuit city and best buy/future shop.
You see, Dell computer is a direct to consumer company. They sell directly to consumers through the internet and through select stores and through phone sales. So let your street creds go with that.
@35
Digg is very much Linux land as is the notorious slashdot.org
Every MSDN subscriber knows as well as I do that the MSDN subscription license only allows you to use the OSs and software for development purposes. Not that I would ever use them otherwise even if presented the opportunity.
So I use Linux on ALL my machines at work and at home. 14 total computers all running Linux. All running open office. I only keep 1 XP installed for quickbooks and that’s it.
None of them will be able to access any Silverlight applications. Back to websphere support land I go. Distributing software for free, and selling support to those who can afford it is THE business model. One day MS will be forced to learn that, and I welcome the day they do.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:18 pm
@43, that just about sums it up. The people who make hating Microsoft their life’s work are clearly aware that Silverlight has legs or they wouldn’t be spitting so furiously…
May 1st, 2007 at 8:19 pm
“14 total computers all running Linux”
Ooh…that means the number of Linux users is atleast 13 less than the reproted numbers…Too bad
May 1st, 2007 at 8:23 pm
@48
I’m not spitting furiously because they’ll succeed. I’m spitting furiously because they tried.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/684.pdf
This is so reminiscent of the DOJ’s exhibit noting the Netscape web browser monopolization. They probably figure that since Adobe has taken over the flash product from Macromedia, that they are diversified enough not to consider pursuing MS in an anti-trust case based on this. Such as Real Networks and AOL did a couple short years back.
@49
I am not the only person that works in our office.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I think it’s just totally amazing that Microsoft is still pushing to be the top dog, albeit in vein, when they still [with their vast knowledge and degrees] haven’t even tackled the one thing that bogs them down in every office and every household…the failure for Windows to properly handle system resources, and ram.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:31 pm
@43
macbeach, here’s a more rational take on Silverlight from a Mac perspective
http://www.macuser.com/video/netflix_watch_now_feature_comi.php?lsrc=murss
It praises Silverlight for bringing Netflix’s “Watch Now” feature to the Mac. Are you sure you want Silverlight “killed early” even if Mac users get good things out of it? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!
May 1st, 2007 at 8:33 pm
@50
Beer, save the DOJ stuff for someone who cares. You can’t argue against the tech, so you cry “antitrust!” LOL. And all to help Adobe, who threatened to sue Microsoft to stop them from including PDF export in Office 2007 to protect Adobe’s *own* monopoly in Office PDF export tools!
May 1st, 2007 at 8:38 pm
If this is a threat, it is a surmountable one. Flash2 anyone? Aggressive development and an announced timetable should beat this. People will wait for an open solution that promises to be competitive given the entrenchment of Flash. But Adobe needs to move now, and they would be best off enlisting Google and other MS competitors.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:48 pm
@44
Welch, you’re *really* desperate to dismiss the Mix07 keynote as a “dog and pony” show. I knew this event would cause you great pain, but you might want to let it subside before continuing to post, so you can look on this when you’re more calm and rational. The rest of your post is even more pathetic (bringing Xbox financial losses into this? Intentionally mistaking the “iTunes doesn’t work on Linux” for an “iPod doesn’t work with mp3″ strawman?).
This is just another example of you dismissing a Microsoft product without doing any investigation into it (because rather than learn, you’d prefer to remain ignorant so you can freely bash - “ignorance is bliss”). You did this with Scoble’s post on Microsoft Research, where you trashed Microsoft without even watching Scoble’s video.
When I read this excerpt from http://www.fromthetrench.com/2007/05/01/silverlight-has-vaporized-client-side-scripting/, you came to mind: “It’s going to be tough for a lot of MS bigots to swallow their pride and embrace Silverlight. At the very least it will make for excellent entertainment.”
I mean, even Steve Gillmor, who hates Microsoft as much as you (well, nobody hates them as much as you do), says “the engineering behind this is stunning”.
Here’s a screencast demo of the “Top Banana” silverlight app, one of the apps that was demoed at the Mix07 keynote (you know, the keynote that MS haters are afraid to watch and show dismiss as “dog and pony show” :p). The app was written in one month. Is there a Flash app that can match it?
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/5/0/85096922-090d-4dfa-96b6-f74810411973/FullCut2.wmv
May 1st, 2007 at 8:57 pm
[...] Steve Gillmor gives it a thumbs up and says “the engineering behind this is stunning.” Robert Scoble, who’s angry at Microsoft for not giving him a free pass to the Mix event, says [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Follow-up from @53:
And the “Top Banana” silverlight app is only 50k. I’ve seen Flash apps that are huge, take forever to download, and yet aren’t in the same sport as “Top Banana”, let alone the same league.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:38 pm
[...] Don’t know about the Internet reboot but Microsoft is definitely getting rebooted thanks to fresh leadership from Ray Ozzie. A-list bloggers are giving rave reviews of Silverlight and Microsoft is also releasing some part of the code under their open source code program. Silverlight release itself is a pathbreaking event - cross-platform solution, partially open source, integrated with Streaming service. Engineering behind this seems to be very impressive. [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Servers are managed/used by someone who knows what they are doing. So, they would be able to keep the box crash-free with no crapware or processor hogging ‘always on’ stuff etc. I want to see how Linux fares when average joe starts installing 5 different toolbars in the browser.
You missed the point, but nice try. Linux on the desktop is a nonissue for now, hence the lack of attention from consumer software vendors. As a server and a development platform however, it has far more influence than you wish it did. As far as the rest of your point, well, no OS is proof against deliberate stupidity.
The people who make hating Microsoft their life’s work are clearly aware that Silverlight has legs or they wouldn’t be spitting so furiously
Has legs? It’s not even a released product yet. Please. Let’s see if Microsoft supports this worth a crap for a few years and a few revs, or if it turns into Rotor: the Second Coming of Dumb.
It praises Silverlight for bringing Netflix’s “Watch Now” feature to the Mac. Are you sure you want Silverlight “killed early” even if Mac users get good things out of it? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!
You’re taking MACRUMORS seriously? Oy vey.
And all to help Adobe, who threatened to sue Microsoft to stop them from including PDF export in Office 2007 to protect Adobe’s *own* monopoly in Office PDF export tools!
Funny how there’s a ton of those around on Windows and every other platform. Hell, Mac OS X gives it to you for free in the OS. Yet Adobe isn’t suing them. Funny that.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:57 pm
[...] Microsoft “rebooted the Web” yesterday Robert Scoble describes Silverlight as slicker, feels better, and has far better video quality than anything Google can throw at Windows users with YouTube/Flash/etc. [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Welch, I noticed you belittled and “meh’ed” Chris’ charge that Apple changed the iTunes protocol which broke iTunes knockoffs on Linux. You would have absolutely crucified Microsoft for such action! As I’ve said before, you need help, badly.
Chris, you keep citing “diggers” like they’re some authority on anything. I just went to Digg.com and the place is in meltdown as Digg tries to delete posts containing an HD-DVD encryption code, and diggers keep making more and more posts containing forms of the code. The entire front page was filled with stories containing the HD-DVD code “spelled out” in various ways. I didn’t really know what was going on until I went to slashdot and saw the slashdot story on this. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/02/0235228&threshold=-1
That’s the maturity of the “digger” community that you want Microsoft to pay deference to. LOL Now you see why Microsoft and most other companies with sense don’t care to waste time catering to “diggers”.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:23 pm
“Funny how there’s a ton of those around on Windows and every other platform. Hell, Mac OS X gives it to you for free in the OS. Yet Adobe isn’t suing them. Funny that.”
Welch, I know you’re not this stupid. You’re just being your usual disingenuous self (which is worse than being stupid, because you actually know better). Obvously, Adobe didn’t fear that OSX and those other products would hurt Adobe’s monopoly in Office PDF export tools. Adobe did have that fear regarding Office 2007. This is well-known.
It’s impossible to have a real debate with you because you keep making points that you yourself don’t even believe, but you make them anyway.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:34 pm
[...] 2nd, 2007 · No Comments The geeks are going crazy over Silverlight, and I await rational explanations in English. What I gather so far [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 11:07 pm
[...] Microsoft Silverlight [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 11:14 pm
“It praises Silverlight for bringing Netflix’s “Watch Now” feature to the Mac. Are you sure you want Silverlight “killed early” even if Mac users get good things out of it? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!”
You’re taking MACRUMORS seriously? Oy vey.
————-
Welch, you’re quoting and mocking me, but I cited a MacUser.com article. macbeach, the guy that cited a particular MACRUMORS post trashing Silverlight is on *your* side! Nice way to own yourself. LOL
Of course, I know you’re having trouble thinking straight, being so upset that Silverlight looks good.
Oh, and by the way, here is the portion of the keynote showing the Silverlight Netfilx video-on-demand app working on both Windows and Mac:
http://visitmix.com/Blogs/Joshua/netflix-uses-silverlight-for-video-on-demand/
Quoting from Color of Money, “It’s like a nightmare, isn’t it? It just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn’t it?”
May 1st, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Silverlight looks pretty nice, but I wouldn’t want to build on top of it unless they open source it. As is, it looks like anther MS attempt at owning the web.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:51 pm
98% means Microsoft is the standard. As long as they make stuff that works with their stuff, devs can make solid bets on the .NET platform. As a .NET developer, the value of your skills increases with every move they make and every business they move into. The opposite is true if you develop on any other platform.
Intuit and Adobe have been getting away with writing crappy software nobody likes to use for years and now at least Adobe is finally going to start paying for it! Macromedia was dead the moment they allowed Adobe to buy them.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:13 am
Seeing The Light
I’ve heard a little about “silverlight” recently - but it fell into the general drone of noise that fills my usual busy schedule
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:10 am
[...] Microsoft “rebooted the Web” [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:19 am
[...] I have never, ever, ever seen this before. A Google Reader Server Error. Feed errors? Sure. But NEVER this. Could be that I’ve just been lucky this whole time. But maybe there’s more to it. Is it a sign of things to come? Is Silverlight responsible? Did Microsoft really reboot the web? [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:20 am
@Welch “Funny how Microsoft keeps avoiding Mono, isn’t it.”
Umm, it isn’t exactly a MS project…or did I miss your point?
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:30 am
Google Reader is not working. I tell ya, Microsoft did reboot the web and Google’s feeling the effects!
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 am
[...] Steve Gillmor gives it a thumbs up and says “the engineering behind this is stunning.” Robert Scoble, who’s angry at Microsoft for not giving him a free pass to the Mix event, says [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:23 am
[...] Steve Gillmor gives it a thumbs up and says “the engineering behind this is stunning.” Robert Scoble, who’s angry at Microsoft for not giving him a free pass to the Mix event, says [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:33 am
[...] about, but it seems that this technology may surely affect most users of the web at some point. Robert Scoble describes why: “For end users at home it’ll look slicker, feel better, and have far better [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:16 am
[...] man. Notorische Microsoft Hasser wie etwa Steve Gillmor zeigen sich von Silverlight begeistert. Robert Scoble meint sogar: „Microsoft rebooted the [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:33 am
Welch, you’re quoting and mocking me, but I cited a MacUser.com article. macbeach, the guy that cited a particular MACRUMORS post trashing Silverlight is on *your* side!
Taking MacRumors seriously for good OR ill is stupid. There’d be a reason that no one other than MacMacs reads that site.
Of course, I know you’re having trouble thinking straight, being so upset that Silverlight looks good.
Just like Rotor on multiple platforms looked good. Until Microsoft “upgraded” it to a Windows only product. Sorry Robinson, but Microsoft is about as trustworthy with regard to to cross platform outside of the Mac BU as a scorpion on meth.
@Welch “Funny how Microsoft keeps avoiding Mono, isn’t it.”
Umm, it isn’t exactly a MS project…or did I miss your point?
You missed it. Mono has been working hard for years to provide cross-platform .NET implementations that run *outside* of the browser, and people have built real applications on it. Yet, it gets ignored by the company that would stand to benefit the most from it, Microsoft. Hell, in one of Robert’s first WPF/E Channel 9 interviews, the guy working on WPF/E, (Might have been Harsh, but it’s been a while) had never even heard of Mono.
This ignoring of a project dedicated to propagating a critical Microsoft technology to well, everyone, makes no sense at all, unless you remember Ballmer and his rabid hatred of Linux.
But then, like the Port 25 marketing group, and all the other examples throughout Microsoft history, Microsoft has shown that talking about cross-platform and doing anything about it are two very different things.
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:58 am
Scoble, be serious…
What’s the difference between Java in the browser and .net in the browser?
Answer: HYPE!
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:31 am
@52
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/684.pdf
All Adobe needs to sufficiently bury Microsoft in any legal case is to show this 10 year old piece of evidence.
They’re essentially trying to do the exact same thing they did to Netscape 10 years ago.
“And all to help Adobe, who threatened to sue Microsoft to stop them from including PDF export in Office 2007 to protect Adobe’s *own* monopoly in Office PDF export tools!”
My Open Office 2 lets me export PDF just fine?
As a matter of fact, I NEVER had a problem editing or exporting PDF on Red Hat Linux ever.
Maybe your Office suite is just inferior?
Maybe it’s time to upgrade.
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:33 am
BTW, you can download Open Office 2 and start exporting PDFs free of charge right now at http://www.openoffice.org
Open Office 2 works on Windows, Mac, and PC.
Monopoly?
There are at least 12 different apps I can name that let you manipulate PDFs on Linux. A lot of them are included by default when you install a desktop system.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 am
@56
Welch - Rotor was always a academic product. It’s true that v2 built out of the box for Windows only but it really won’t be hard to patch the code so that it builds for Mac again. If you’re really interested, you could go talk to Jan Kotas and I’m sure he can help you do this.
@52
I would point you to the fact that the early Office 2007 betas had PDF export built-in. It got moved to a free add-in after the issue with Adobe.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:39 am
Microsoft silverlight bubbles
It's Interesting to follow the discussion about Microsoft's silverlight announcement. On the one hand you see the hype about a "reboot of the web" as Scoble puts it and on the other hand you have the Microsoft critics that begin to …
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:46 am
@Welch…
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you’re convinced that eventually MS will abandon Silverlight on non MS platforms then it sounds to me like leaving Linux out doesn’t matter either way in the long run.
Much ado about nothing really. Especially when you consider the fact that most Linux users don’t even want MS technology running on their boxes anyway…ask Chris here for example.
By the way, you handwaved away the fact that the iTunes software doesn’t run on Linux. It would be nice to hear your views on why it doesn’t.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:55 am
“most Linux users don’t even want MS technology”
That’s actually not true. It’s not the technology that most Linux users hate. It’s the business practices of the company. Look at this PDF I posted:
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/684.pdf
They could have just as easily made an internet browser based on a NEED and good points instead of saying: clone and superset, clone and superset, like a broken record, and trying to use their position to destroy the market for everybody. Just as they are trying to doing the same to flash right now.
It’s not the technology people hate, it’s Microsoft the company.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:08 am
[...] blogger Robert Scoble claims Microsoft rebooted the Web with Silverlight, discussing Silverlight as a direct move into territories where companies like Google are trying to [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:15 am
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/unbuntu?c=us&cs=19&l=en&
Here’s a little more fodder for all your cannons BTW.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:26 am
So many questions..
Interesting read, especially all the comments and Steve’s story, though i’ve got the feeling there’s one small error in his piece. They will support Ruby, not Ruby on Rails, but that’s just a small but understandable error. Ruby is the language, Ruby on Rails the framework..
While most of you dismiss Linux as a platform they should look into, one remark to those. On the desktop they can do this easily, but on the server side I wouldn’t recommend it, or to be more precise, will there be an apache plug-in ???
It will definitely be interesting to see how many of the design community will come aboard and are willing to learn new skills and leave behind they’re beloved Adobe suite.
Will it run on symbian phones is another interesting question.
It will be interesting indeed. Microsoft and Adobe getting their light sabers out and may the best (good) one win.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:41 am
@59
Sriram, I well aware that Office 2007 still supports PDF-export as a plugin. I just find it ironic that Chris is screaming about Silverlignt being an antitrust violation of some sort, all while glossing over the fact that Adobe’s legal threats made Microsoft remove PDF-export functionality as a built-in feature, for fear that it would threaten Adobe’s own monopoly on Office-PDF export tools.
Adobe went so far as to offer to allow Microsoft to include PDF-export built-in, but only if they raised the price of Office 2007 so that it didn’t undercut Adobe’s own Office-PDF export tools. Which is collusion to engage in price-fixing, in order to protect Adobe’s monopoly. THAT is the “angelic” company that Chris is worried about.
Meanwhile, he can’t point to a single thing that would make Silverlight run afoul of antitrust. He keeps citing some DOJ papers, because he can’t attact the actual product. It quite amusing. :)
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:54 am
“Meanwhile, he can’t point to a single thing that would make Silverlight run afoul of antitrust.”
If I was Adobe and I had to present this as anti-trust, I would simply point to that document from the DOJ as precedent, point to the fact that Silverlight will be shipped with the Operating system and or OS updates, and that my product is not, and point to any other facts that make it uniquely integrated with Microsoft’s own OS platform libraries.
They’ve already been labeled serial monopolists several times worldwide. This move is very similar to what they did with internet explorer, and I think that the general angst against this company can pull it the rest of the way to success.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:58 am
Video Quality Claims Need Substance
I have a lot of experience with video both as a developer and a user and I’d like to mention my doubts about these claims about the quality of silverlight video.
I am a 75% windows user and I’ve had about two dozen serious problems with windows media player on my 3 windows computer and one mac laptop in the past few years. I haven’t had any problems with Flash or Quicktime in the same ammount of time on the same systems.
As just one example, a few years ago Major League Baseball offered most of it’s games over the internet via both Flash and Windows Media Player as options. The flash video quality was better, ran in a variety of browsers and scaled well to view it fullscreen. Last year they went just to WMP and ever since the experience has been full of constant dropped connections, ugly compression artifacts, pallete errors (resulting in rainbow colored images) and the inability to display video on both monitors of a multimonitor computer.
I’d like to see some hard numbers and some real world example apps in the wild including bandwidth requirements before I can listen to any mention of windows video improving on flash or quicktime video without getting angry. This is not as a developer, but a user.
I used to really like that MLB baseball video tool and now it stinks because somebody at MLB nibbled on the same hook.
-Cort
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:17 am
So many errors so little time. I’ll just defend myself against the slight slanders and leave the rest.
I own an Apple laptop. I am not an Apple fanatic. My name is actually Mac, pure coincidence. “macbeach” is my name in Second Life. I check macrumors to see what actual Apple fanatics think. That doesn’t make me one.
I enjoy using Linux. OS X is a reasonable substitute when I need a laptop. I have a Windows machine in my house which I booted for the first time in 830+ days the other day in preparation for doing a fresh Linux install on the other partition. I booted into Windows to help a friend who uses Windows get unstuck on a problem. I spend too much time helping people get unstuck with Windows problems for my liking, so I often suggest to them a more permanent solution.
A very wise blogger recently opined that content producers should stick with LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) tools so that it “just works” for the greatest number of people (I’m paraphrasing). With this post he seems to have forgotten that advice, at least temporarily.
PDF “just works” on Linux and OS X, as does Flash. These tools are “good enough” for what they are mostly used to do. Microsoft is free to come out with something that is ten percent better here or there and try and convince people to abandon the old things they are used to. As users we should be concerned that the marketplace for these things does not get fragmented as it has in the past when Microsoft goes head to head with particular competitors (browser wars, Java vs Activex, Media Player vs MP3, RM, etc, Slow adoption of PNG… I could list more).
There are of course areas of computing where Microsoft could make very valuable contributions without trying to put other companies out of business… that is, fill in the gaps rather than try and claim spots that are already occupied. It should be clear to anyone that MS suffers from a pathological condition in this regard. It is competition for sake of competition, not as a service to users. Users are in fact merely a scoring mechanism for Microsoft. It will be very clear, by deeds, not words, when Microsoft frees itself from the pathology of its founders by making it as easy to leave (export) from one of its technologies as it is to adopt (import). Google has stated this as a core value, and so far they are following it. I look forward to the day with Microsoft might do the same. That day hasn’t arrived yet though.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:53 am
Welch:
“Taking MacRumors seriously for good OR ill is stupid. There’d be a reason that no one other than MacMacs reads that site.”
But you quoted and mocked *me* as citing MacRumors, when it was your ally macbeach that cited it.
Anyway, I pointed you to the demo of the Silverlight Netflix video-on-demand app running on Mac, so it’s not really relevant that a particular MacRumors post trashed the notion of Netflix on Mac or that the MacUSer.com article praised it, the demo is there for all to watch.
It’s quite fascinating to see a Mac devotee like yourself desperately trying to tear down technology that works for Mac users, simply out of hatred for the company producing the technology. Your posts in this thread are a particularly poor performance, as you cherry pick points that you think you can refute while ignoring the very many points that you can’t, and even your refutations are shrill and consist of strawman arguments and ignorant rants.
Here’s a thought: Actually research what Silverlight is, maybe even muster up the courage to watch the keynote, and *then* raise your objections, so that they’ll be grounded in knowledge rather than in blissful ignorance.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:01 am
[...] kenners: Scoble: Microsoft “rebooted the Web” yesterday Techcrunch: Silverlight: The Web Just Got Richer [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:09 am
I have to agree with the previous poster a bit here.
The Microsoft fan boys will get wrapped up in this, but as a developer, any new Microsoft web technology sends a shiver down my spine. They have a terrible track record in this regard. I mean look into the non standards compliance issues that have plagued IE. Did they do this for their users? No.
I have this image in my head, from my last job, of the IT guy who tech some MS Cert classes, and knew zip about the internets otherwise, I’m sure he will be amped for this.
In my opinion if MS wants to innovate they should look at building tools around open standards. Look at what is happening with ajax frameworks, and open source SWF stuff. This is just another botch up that developers will wait to fade into their clients memories.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:12 am
[...] one on why it is important as well as one with details. Robert Scoble could not resist with the superlatives and Steve Gillmor penned a thoughful [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:16 am
Has anybody else with a MSDN pro subscription noticed that the expression tools downloads are not available to us. Only on MSDN ultimate.
That doesn’t help.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:21 am
As a side note.
It doesn’t make me particularly happy that Adobe seems to own everything Microsoft doesn’t. Though I do have to say that from a process stand point Adobe has made strides which I do appreciate.
I know this might be a bit off topic, but I saw it discussed above. My final thought is, that if I saw any reason to believe that Microsoft was taking real strides to ‘play nice’ with others and develop tools that really improve work flow and allow for standards based non platform specific innovation. I would be thrilled. I humbly submit that this has not been the case in their long and money-fed history. Their innovations tend to drive development into a locked in solution, and therefore tend to suck the air out of new ideas.
As a final thought. If all the money spent working around Microsoft bugs, quirks etc could have been spent elsewhere we probably would have enough cash to end spam, feed all the hungry children, and buy ourselves each a Zune for our irrelevant hardware collections.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:35 am
[...] impression was that “we were not impressed”. I was interested to read a couple of other articles with quite a different [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:37 am
[...] Steve Gillmor gives it a thumbs up and says “the engineering behind this is stunning.” Robert Scoble, who’s angry at Microsoft for not giving him a free pass to the Mix event, says [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Robert, all the comment numbering gets messed up when you moderate and allow the first timers. Would it be possible to do something about this?
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:06 pm
[...] have to say this little bit made me snicker a tiny bit: And Microsoft “rebooted the web.” I guess that’s all you can do after freezing up for five [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Seshadri: sorry about that. I don’t know what I can do about it, though. I’ll send a note to Mullenweg, cause that’s something they need to fix.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Robert@105,
If there ar not too many comments like that then you could remove the comment body by the text “Comment deleted”, and may be also make it slightly grayer or smaller font compare to other text.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Silverlight may be great. It may even do things that AJAX and HTML cannot. But, keep things in perspective here.
Silverlight
is
not
SEO
friendly.
Just like Flash, no one is going to put all of their web content into Silverlight. It may be a good alternative to Flash, but NOTHING beats HTML that is accessible and readable by Search Engines and all users with any browser, period.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:46 pm
“If I was Adobe and I had to present this as anti-trust, I would simply point to that document from the DOJ as precedent, point to the fact that Silverlight will be shipped with the Operating system and or OS updates, and that my product is not, and point to any other facts that make it uniquely integrated with Microsoft’s own OS platform libraries. “
Um, Microsoft shipped Flash with XP (as part of IE6), so Adobe will look very silly complaining if Microsoft ships Silverlight with their system.
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:09 pm
It’s quite fascinating to see a Mac devotee like yourself desperately trying to tear down technology that works for Mac users, simply out of hatred for the company producing the technology. Your posts in this thread are a particularly poor performance, as you cherry pick points that you think you can refute while ignoring the very many points that you can’t, and even your refutations are shrill and consist of strawman arguments and ignorant rants.
I’t’s a beta of a tech that has a lot of hype but no legs yet, and you’re treating it like the second coming of HTML and Air, yet *I’m* the mindless advocate? Great, you can do cool things with it. I can do cool things with the bottom of a coke can and a Hersey’s bar. Can you make fire with silverlight? No, but I can with a coke can and chocolate. “Cool” is not the same as “useful”.
Considering that I’ve been relying heavily, and with great joy on Microsoft Entourage for the entire life of the product, which is pushing 8 years now, I’m hardly against anything Microsoft does.
But Microsoft’s track record outside of the Mac BU for this kind of cross platform implementation blows ass, and no amount of demo dog and pony shows is going to change that.
Here’s a thought: Actually research what Silverlight is, maybe even muster up the courage to watch the keynote, and *then* raise your objections, so that they’ll be grounded in knowledge rather than in blissful ignorance.
Um, I remember the six-seven month period after the first WPF/e show during the PDC when you couldn’t find any documentation on it for love nor money, along with Robert’s first interview with that team.
So far, it’s a 1.0 product. Do you bet your company behind 1.0 products? Well, evidently YOU do if they’re from MS, but I sure as hell don’t, no matter who makes them. What happens if MS pulls a Rotor on this in a year or two and yanks the cross-platform parts? Everyone who bet the company on this, spent money on the dev environments with the plans of a happy interop world is kinda fucked, and when you’re talking about MS core tech on !MS OS’s, rugs getting pulled are not fantasy.
It’s a web development environment that ignores a major player in the back end of the web, namely Linux. To debug the Mac plugin or code on a Mac, your machine requirements double, either virtually or physically.
When we see Silverlight 2.0 come out for at least every platform 1.0 will be available for, and the !Microsoft platform versions aren’t relegated to a ghetto of suck, and in 2-3 years, we see regular improvements and upkeep of Silverlight, then I’ll take it seriously.
But until then? Sorry man, but once bitten twice shy, and as an IT Pro? I still have MS - shaped scars.
It doesn’t make me particularly happy that Adobe seems to own everything Microsoft doesn’t. Though I do have to say that from a process stand point Adobe has made strides which I do appreciate.
Adobe is starting to act like MS more and more every day, particularly wrt Acrobat, and that’s pretty scary and sad at the same time.
If I was Adobe and I had to present this as anti-trust, I would simply point to that document from the DOJ as precedent, point to the fact that Silverlight will be shipped with the Operating system and or OS updates, and that my product is not, and point to any other facts that make it uniquely integrated with Microsoft’s own OS platform libraries.
Oh for pete’s sake, not everything is anti-trust. It makes PERFECT sense for MS to bundle things like .NET and Silverlight with the OS, just like it made perfect sense to embed an HTML engine in the OS. What was messed up about the last part was MS then using bribes and threats to prevent anyone from NOT using their HTML engine.
The presence of a feature in an OS is not a problem. Now, if MS were to start playing the same games with flash that they did with IE et al, THAT would be a problem.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you’re convinced that eventually MS will abandon Silverlight on non MS platforms then it sounds to me like leaving Linux out doesn’t matter either way in the long run.
That’s a good point, but rememeber, Silverlight isn’t just a consumer app ala iTunes. It’s a server implementation, it’s something you want a decent dev environment for, it’s a web-only tech, and it has some, or can have some hefty network requirements, depending on use. All of those are things that Linux does quite well. Linux on the desktop, not so much. Linux for programmers, Linux for servers? Yeah, that works really well.
Much ado about nothing really. Especially when you consider the fact that most Linux users don’t even want MS technology running on their boxes anyway…ask Chris here for example.
I have the same views on Linux fanatics that I do on MacMacs and WinTrolls. Put them in a bus and set it on fire. Save a lot of problems. I’m a pragmatist. My favorite directory service is AD, not because i’m in love with MS, but because it’s the best for my needs, and rocks. My favorite web server is Apache, not because I love open source, but because it does what I need it to do quietly and reliably, and is far more sane to deal with than IIS, and a damned site cheaper. If MS came out with Office for Linux, I’d have no problem buying it for my Linux uses. Open Office is nice, but for my needs, it’s a damned pain.
By the way, you handwaved away the fact that the iTunes software doesn’t run on Linux. It would be nice to hear your views on why it doesn’t.
Personally, i think it’s a pretty stupid decision. Arguments about “which linux” aside, I don’t agree with it on any level. Having said that, I understand why they might not. The linux market is not something that is terribly consumer oriented. Secondly, Apple actually wants you to PAY for music you get from iTunes. Getting Linux users to pay for software, much less music is not an easy sell. Outside of IT, “Linux” and “Pay” do not go well together. In the server room sure, but the Linux user community is not going to make you a lot of money, or at least that’s the impression they work very hard to give…
But I still disagree with it, because I think not doing it plays into image too much. Part of why Linux doesn’t pay for things is because it doesn’t get a lot of stuff worth paying for. The GIMP? Please. I’d pay for it to get a proper UI first. I think that as iTunes showed the music companies, that if someone took the risk and offered the linux community software worth paying for, it would most likely be a success.
Oh sure the fanboys would bend over and recite the Stallman Party Line, but who cares about them. They’re like people who don’t vote, inconsequential. I don’t in fact think that Linux is the realm of entitlement queen dickheads. I think no one’s really offered them consumer software worth paying for yet. The first ones who do may be rather happy about it.
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:14 pm
The main reason iTunes never made it to Linux - UI designers couldn’t get a cool ‘Jobs impressive’ UI in Linux…
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:38 pm
[...] just released, and you’re looking at a whole new web with Microsoft leading the way. As Robert Scoble put it, Microsoft “rebooted the Web”. Bringing .NET to the web (and not just in their [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:58 pm
[...] Microsoft “rebooted the Web” yesterday One way you can tell how good a product launch is by waiting for the day after effect. Are people still talking about […] [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Does Microsoft actually expect Mac web developers to buy their development software *and* their OS, just so we can develop Siverlight content with DRM HD content? DRM isn’t exactly on the rise these days. And It’s a $400 dongle to run their applications. Plus all the hassle that comes with Windows.
There’s a reason why I’ve completely rid my personal and professional computing environment of Microsoft products: Poorly written software and unethical business practices. My guess is that Siverlight will work great on Windows, but “meh” on Mac OS X.
And where’s 1.1 for PPC Macs? It’s not even out of beta yet.
If Microsoft releases a cross platform runtime *and* development application, I *might* entertain the idea. But, personally, wouldn’t trust Microsoft any further than can throw it. Microsoft could simply discontinue Mac support for either the Silverlight runtime, the development app or both.
With their track record, why should I be willing to make an investment in a technology that, in the long term, would be in Microsoft’s best interest to see discontinued.
- WIndows Media Player
- Internet Explorer
- Quicktime vs. Window Media: http://tinyurl.com/2rv36j
- Project Fahrenheit : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_graphics_API
- OS/2 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Mr. Robinson wrote: “It praises Silverlight for bringing Netflix’s “Watch Now” feature to the Mac. Are you sure you want Silverlight “killed early” even if Mac users get good things out of it? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!”
We should thank Microsoft? We could be using “Watch Now”, right now if Microsoft hadn’t discontinued WMP for Mac OS X.
That’s like calling, Vista’s application independent volume control a “Feature”, when it was really Microsoft finally fixing an ancient architectural limitation that had been around since Windows 3.1 (1992) and should have been fixed decades ago.
http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2005/12/15/504158.aspx
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:50 pm
[...] Microsoft announced Silverlight on Monday. Robert Scoble says “Microsoft rebooted the Web“. So I’ve read a bit about Silverlight as well as Adobe Apollo (the main competitor), [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:10 pm
The main reason iTunes never made it to Linux - UI designers couldn’t get a cool ‘Jobs impressive’ UI in Linux…
While that could very well be a reason, I tend to doubt it was a prime reason. But sure, if they couldn’t guarantee Steve that iTunes would look the way he wants, I could easily see him nixing the idea. He’s real particular about such things.
WIndows Media Player
- Internet Explorer
- Quicktime vs. Window Media: http://tinyurl.com/2rv36j
- Project Fahrenheit : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_graphics_API
- OS/2 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2
Dude, while I agree completely on WiMP Mac, (but then, that application sucked donkey snot on the Mac anyway, so the Flip4Mac plugin is a VAST improvement) OS/2 and IE are a little silly. What was the point of another version of IE on the Mac? It was never going to run ActiveX or any of the other things that actually require IE on Windows.
On Project Farenheit, well, yeah, that’s classic MS bait and switch. Get people to commit to their stuff under the guise of interop/cross-platform, then once they’ve committed, kill the interop. It’s happened quite a few times, and is the primary reason I simple don’t trust their commitment to Silverlight.
OS/2 was far more IBM’s blunder than MS’s.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Silverlight is proprietary Microsoft garbage. You couldn’t pay me enough to use it. The world needs another “standard” from the monopolist felon of software like it needs another lawyer.
Microsoft should focus on fixing Office 2007 and Vista because they suck pretty bad.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Every single Web 2.0 developer I know uses a Mac.
Did you read that? EVERY SINGLE WEB 2.0 DEVELOPER I KNOW, AND I KNOW QUITE A FEW, USES A MAC.
I have no intention of even downloading the Beta. MS can’t even make a good MSN messenger for mac, I am only too well aware of their long term “commitment” to this platform. They are still tied to the Windows cash cow, this is nothing but another tie-in attempt, a day late and a dollar short.
I will not support this, neither will anyone I know. Maybe a few big companies, you know the type - run by some pointy-haired know-nothing “CIO” will implement this. But none of the small innovative companies will, and they’re the future.
RIP “Silverlight” 2007 - 2008/9, we won’t miss you.