@Paradise: Well I guess it really depends on your programming background. Just letting you know that I'm not a big fan of Flash nor SilverLight. I hope they both disappear from the web.

EDENe

@EDENe: the first sentence i'll agree with but you need to stop drinking the company kool-aid on the second one. It's much easier to develop an RIA in Flash/Flex than it is SL 2.

@DBNull: somehow i doubt adobe will be unsettled. they already have flex and air in place.

Paradise

Silverlight 1.1 is currently out and is a reasonable start.
Silverlight 2.0 is due out in 1st half '08 and will be significant. It will come with a shrunk .Net CLR inbuilt. The upshot being that all of those millions of .Net devs out there will be able to code rich Internet apps in C#/VB.Net. This should be very unsettling to Adobe.

DBNull

Silverlight is not an alternative of Flash. Being a part of .NET, Silverlight is more powerful, yet easier to develop richier applications.

@Dirk: Actually there are quite a portion of websites with Silverlight. You probably have Siverlight installed and thought they were just Flash...

EDENe

@imTheKing: I understand that comprehension is very hard concept for you to grasp, so let me see if I can break it down for you barney-style.

Re-read what I said, very slowly this time and feel free to clap-out the syllables of big words. I never bash Adobe, actually I stated a fact that "Flash currently dominates in the web arena". I also said that IE is trying to play "catch-up".

As far as Silverlight? Silverlight for mobile apps is still only a prototype. Silverlight for web-apps was only recently included into the Visual Studio IDE, and most consider it as barely a valid RC. It is still in its infancy stages, much like yourself, and nowhere near capable of competing with Flash currently. In a year or two from now? It most definitely will.

Now put away your Suicide iPod Nano belt, and no one has to get hurt…..

emix

I don't think I've ever encountered a website with Silverlight content. I wonder if MS has any numbers in terms of usage....

Dirk

Anyone with windows mobile on their phone should know by now that you can download flash for it directly from adobe's website. Granted it only supports flash 7 at the moment, and that alienates some of the more larger websites, but it does allow for viewing quite a bit more content than you would realize. Plus, for a flash developer like myself, making games and aps in flash for my phone is crazy fun.

Neight

@emix: What kind of cock stumbler are you? Apple biased or not, if anything its props to Adobe for having such a solid and widely used product. Whether you want to admit it or not, Silverlight was a horrible attempt at competing with Adobe's Flash application. Stop crying for the love of god.

imTheKing

@tonyn84: same here, my phone came with Adobe Reader and flash was an easy install.

archercc

Wow, how surprising, yet another Apple biased article on Giz. You guys really can't go an article without tossing in some mention of an Apple product, can you?

First, you state that "It means two things". Well, are you stating fact or opinion? Sounds like fact to me, in which case you are WAY off base.

I will rephrase for you:

It could mean two things.

1)IE is trying to be on more even footing in how their browser interacts with a range of mobile sites, which it currently lacks as opposed to other mobile browsers. While mobile Silverlight development is still in early stages of development and due out in the near future, it should provide IE Mobile better compatibility viewing sites that Flash currently dominates in the web arena.

2)It will provide Windows Mobile developers a way to incorporate more dynamic web applications for the current WM OS. This could be a major benefit for WM developers, which unlike Apple's "Walled Garden", should allow a much more open environment and interactive app development. (Ooooooo, Apple Jab)

Wow, go figure, it's not so hard to be a bit un-biased and allow readers to make their own opinions instead of feeding it down their throats.

Anyway, I better get out of here before some Apple fanboy extremist with a Suicide iPod Nano belt comes after me.

emix

So, I'm confused as I already have Adobe reader and Flash Lite installed on my phone and they've been there since i bought it. Does this only regard integration with mobile IE?
And btw, skyfire beta is amazing since we're on the topic of mobile browsers. Even with flash mobile IE has a long way to go.

tonyn84

Maybe it's because the Silverlight logo looks like a glass model of a uterus.

Kaiser-Machead

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Silverlight is DOA. They'll try to resurrect it by including it in the new IE, but it'll be a tall order to get devs to really adopt it as a replacement to Flash.

bitfactory

When will they slow down on the fatty foods?

Stevie B.'s sweating enough already up there.

dvicklund

3) EU, or all that implies.

?

...Yes, no, maybe, something similar?

Kyang

Come on Giz, I expect better from you.

jhofker

@Dirk: There's a lot of Silverlight goodness.

Hard Rock Cafe has an awesome Deepzoom of memorbilia: [memorabilia.hardrock.com]

British Library has virtual books : [www.bl.uk]

Weather widget : [silverlight.r2musings.com]

That and many other neat things : [silverlight.net]

quikboy

@emix: mate, you are my new hero.

Step666

I see this as a way for Microsoft to thumb their nose at Apple. "Want the REAL web on your phone? Get Windows Mobile with Flash!"

Tired_

Not including Flash Lite in the iPhone was a purely competitive thing (IMHO).

It would be pretty stupid to launch a brand new SDK for the iPhone and expect to make money off of it while at the same time announcing Flash Lite support which would allow users to create similar web-based apps and games... Not to mention that developing in Flash would carry widespread utility as compared to an iPhone only SDK.

designpreneur

@DBNull: Yeah, that's exactly what we need is more C#/VB.Net applications on the Net. Gag.

bitfactory

I wish that the lousy performance of Flash on the Mac was a mere "allegation" by Steve Jobs, but It's a fact. Flash is slow as a dog on OS X.

With all of the work that Apple has done around 2D graphics acceleration, there is absolutely no excuse for Flash's continued suckage, other than Macromedia's — and now, Adobe's — laziness.

Who knows if the lack of their vector animation engine on the iPhone matters to Adobe at all, but it's nobody's fault but their own.

macserv

I love how people are just dying to see Silverlight fail. Too bad since Silverlight's video performance so vastly outshines Flash video that it's like the difference between VHS and Blu-Ray.

Mark my words, after the Beijing Olympics, people won't be so quick to judge Silverlight.

Flash has been stuck in a rut for the last few years and developers are getting seriously tired of the amount of code they have to puke out to get half decent video performance. Because people will expect more and better video on their screens in the future, and Flash currently delivers a sub-par product no serious content provider will ever use, Silverlight will have it's day in the sun, even if the Giz crew will never understand why.

mor10

I'm disappointed with Gizmodo's dismissal of Silverlight.

I'm Distributed computing final year student, and I like products from across the technology spectrum, all
technologies have their place, all have contributed.

I like Microsoft products just as much as Apple products, and I too had dismissed Silverlight as Microsoft's version of flash. But the fact is if you bother to delve deeper (and I would expect a technology blog to do so). You'll see its far richer than Flash. I believe that it even maybe an application killer of how websites are developed. We will no longer be constrained by klunky square shaped websites. It gives us a way to hook up Content Management Systems to visually appealing web front ends (I mean everyone hates a totally flash base site due to the lack of content management). Delve a little deeper Gizmodo and then give us a balanced article...

AshWag