Microsoft Silverlight – Can it outdo Adobe Flash ?
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If there is something that you want to learn form Microsoft, what it will be? Software skills? Business management practices? Business insights? How did they ever succeed in staying at the top for two decades now with that not-so-perfect Windows? I say it should be their persistence. Sample this – inspite of losing more than $ 4 billion on Xbox, and knowing they were up against a legendary product like Sony’s Playstation, Microsoft launched the second version of Xbox, rechristened Xbox 360. Right now, the Xbox 360 outsells PlayStation 3 in most of the markets. Similarly, the media player from Microsoft, Zune did very badly, but its second version is coming up shortly. Microsoft has, over the years taken on the biggest of players in their own domain, and often emerged triumphant.
Microsoft has now come up with a platform called Silverlight. Microsoft announced the availability of this product in India. Silverlight is cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.
To understand it better, see Silverlight as a competitor to Adobe Flash. Flash allows web-browsers to access animations, and other high-end media enabled web applications. What this means is a richer surfing experiences for the users of the web applications. With increasing bandwidth and higher computing speeds, consumers have come to demand for more from the websites and web applications. Older application may need to be tweaked; newer ones need to be developed in order to put up with the consumers’ expectations. Silverlight is a step in the same direction.
I liked what I saw on the Silverlight Website. Now, it’s all about user adoption. Even Adobe has presented the new version of Flash on August 20 this year. And update was launched on October 1. Right now, Adobe holds the crown for web based video and media applications. But knowing Microsoft, they might just deliver a killer product.
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Although I earn my living out of working on Microsoft technologies, I don’t like the way Microsoft works. I think they have a killer combination of ‘Ordinary product & extra-ordinary marketing’ in most cases rather than a killer product itself. Anyway it will be interesting to read a comparison between SilverLight & Flash. Interestingly they both support .NET for scripting.