At the Media briefing for IE9 yesterday morning, Microsoft tech evangelist Michael Kordahi admitted that the emphasis on HTML5 in Microsoft isn’t going to make Silverlight (or flash) go away any time soon…
“I think there is stuff that Silverlight (and Flash) does that pushes the envelope. Those plugins have to do a better job of being bleeding edge.
“The thing about the standardisation process is that it doesn’t happen overnight. And it’s good when everybody agrees on standards. What things like Silverlight and Flash do – and are increasingly being forced to do more of – is push the boundaries.
“In HTML5, video is a progressive download video – you have a file and it progressively comes down. Silverlight and Flash allow for dynamic bitrate mid-stream. So as you’re playing video, and the connection speed dips, well it can decrease the bitrate. You don’t notice it as the user, you’ll see the quality kind of shift…
“Hardware accelerator was there in Silverlight and Flash before any browsers did it. I love that it’s now a standard and that now all browsers are going to be doing it, and what it does is force Silverlight 5 and Flash 10.2 to push the boundaries and go “what’s next”. Because if they don’t, then they become irrelevant.”
For all of Steve Jobs’ posturing, this seems like a much more accurate assessment of the whole Flash (and Silverlight) issue – HTML is driving forward, but we’re not likely to see the traditional video formats like Flash disappear unless they decide to stop moving forward.
Oliver
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 2:11 PMWhat is going to make flash go away is millions of iOS devices pouring to the market every year.
Flash and silverlight will become enterprise or niche technologies. Html5 will be the only platform capable of reaching to everyone, from mobile to desktops. Even with it’s shortcomes.
zoom
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 4:32 PM@Oliver, iOS device popularity won’t hurt flash.
You’re forgetting that iOS devices are all about the apps, not HTML5. Steve Jobs’ enthusiasm about HTML5 is fake, just covering his primary objective which is to get people using nothing but iTunes apps. He knew HTML5 was nowhere near ready to take on Flash.
People trust Apple too much. But they’re a business like any other, and aim for profit above all. Don’t take everything Jobs says as prophecy. iPads could easily run Flash, and it should be made an option for users to install. Apple ban it for business reasons.
Heath
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 2:20 PMAnd nor should it. Silverlight is one of the best platforms to program on, deploy, customize, override styles. Cocoa and XCode feel lanky between VS’s platform that is simply very seemless. It was so sad to hear Silverlight is soon to be only for WP.7
Matt Casto
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 1:25 AMI think its funny how he still gave a slight dig by calling browser plugins “bleeding edge” rather than “leading edge”.
Come to think of it, I’m not sure when was the last time I heard someone using that euphemism the correct way.
Michael Kordahi
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 7:47 AMGood article Nick. I posted my thoughts on the subject here if your readers would more of my thoughts on the subject.
http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=1208
Borgon
Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 3:12 AMMicrosoft can’t hope to compete with IPad, IPhone and Andriod without a runtime that allows creation of rich experiences that take advantage of a machines hardware (touch, camera, local storage, etc).
It’s clear that we will be consuming apps and the internet from a range of device types in future; on IP TV or games console, phone, slate and desktop.
But one cannot deliver an interactively rich user experience to end users via HTML; the colossal success of Andriod and iOS, and the money spent in their App stores, proves that. HTML is simply not the answer to the new “App Internet” model that Forrester has predicted will increasily replacing pure web based applications.
Silverlight is Microsoft’s only chance at creating a competing rich value-added ecoysystem. Microsoft are making a big mistake not to be publically throwing their full weight behind the platform.