Microsoft gives up on Silverlight
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- maikel0
each time I read silverlight my head instantly replies back saying LIGHTING BOLT!
(yeah sorry, I'm a bit fuck'd)
- Stugoo0
next up. the ie6 cull
- ukit0
Boz...I agree that mobile and apps will be important but disagree with your absolutist view of the future. This happens every few years on the web, people assume that because some or another trend is on the rise, that it will be the future of everything.
Remember Joost? Air on the desktop? Silverlight as a web plugin? Some things just fizzle out. Mobile apps on the other hand will be important, but they won't be everything.
Most people visit dozens of sites every day. They aren't going to want to buy apps for every single thing they do just for a slightly shinier experience. The desktop experience still makes the most sense for the majority of computing, therefore you'll have people using the regular web the majority of the time. Even on mobile, people will still browse the web just as much as they use apps.
As far as HTML5 being a "buzzword," that's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. I guess you think you know better than the heads of Microsoft, Apple and Google, who are all banking heavily on it. But more to the point HTML5 is not only a rich media tool but simply the rest version of HTML. Positioning yourself against HTML5 is pretty silly.
- fadein100
Has anyone got a charger for a nokia 5210
- Boz0
Ukit.. I was joking about the whole I'm always right :)
I'll answer your comment/questions.
1. "You can rant all you want about Apple and Steve Jobs (which have nothing to do with this) but at the end of the day, being dropped from the regular web is a pretty big blow and the responses of the Silverlight devs in the forum post I linked earlier tell you that."
First let me just say that hyping this news about Silverlight and mischaracterizing it as the end of silverlight is actually an indirect dig at flash by Apple fanboys and Apple sites because they want to show how HTML5 will take over everything.. This is simply not going to happen.. so everyone should better learn to deal with it.
Also, again, Silverlight is not being dropped at all... few years it will probably shift to full blown development platform for devices and OS.. you won't need Silverlight for the web that much (people will use Flash for more advanced video and audio stuff and probably HTML5 for simple video and audio, and I guess Silverlight won't play a huge role there - it's not like it has so far anyways). But in general, there's nothing those Silverlight developers have to fear.. They will have plenty of work. Microsoft is not leaving Windows Phone 7 and Windows Silverlight Framework any time soon and in fact they are making Silverlight the center of their whole new strategy and company's direction.
Developers got upset, because his interview was taken out of context and mischaracterized.
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2. "What are people going to do at work all day, use their iPad? Are we going to design on a TV or a phone? Use some common sense."
No.. they will run the instances of same application on their respective devices.. Let's take a look at a simple fictitious example..
Right now.. we have a website called BozzyliciousNews.com this website is built in HTML and it has a ton of news, but it also has your profile, some social stuff and news you subscribe to and all that good stuff.. So it's effectively a news platform with API you can plug into to get user info and their news and all that.. I'll keep going with my example but it's similar to what we have with Facebook now. You don't even need to use Facebook website now to use Facebook right? It's everywhere (your phone, your ipad, your google tv, your roku box, your xbox 360 etc)...
That's how we do news today.. in general what people would do is go that website on their device and use it like a site right?
But the future is not going to be in sites anymore. Why is that.. because you want to take advantage of certain special device APIs you are viewing the content on, you want to interact with the device and make the UI take advantage of that specific type of device right?
Well unfortunately HTML can't do that.. it can do some simpler things, it can package your site as, basically, a mobile app but it's really not powerful enough to do what AIR or Silverlight will do.. Naturally, the best way to do it is to build apps that would utilize Bozzylicious platform through it's own API but to code it in device's native language (like java, obj-c etc) but that's not what's time efficient and flexible.. That's why people want AIR/Silverlight as app development plaforms because they are universal.. One code base, different interactive layers.
Now, a regular user, in the web before mobile evolution would use your site by going to it on their desktop computer. But, the way you will live your life (and you are totally right to call me out on it in a few years if I was wrong) is that you will have an Android phone in your pocket, an iPad in your car or your bedroom, a Google TV in your living room and you will access Bozzylicious platform from all those devices through beautiful apps (as we've seen plenty on iPad and phones) with similar interfaces but tailored to that devices display/interaction capabilities. You will read your news, read comments, watch videos etc etc and have 3d stuff and great interfaces overall to show that content off.
You will have less and less need to go to your desktop computer and access that website. Why would you? You have information on the go.. That's what majority people actually want and it seems that a lot of new startups are doing exactly that.. building APIs and launching apps.
And even on your desktop, you probably won't use browsers and those sites in the same way you use it now.. You will be using Apple's OSX App Store, you will be using Intel's AppUp, you will be using Adobe's inMarket app store, you will be using new IE9 features they call "web apps" instead of sites..
It's what's happening now.. HTML5 will have a role in this, but the whole model has shifted.. the web will most likely start becoming irrelevant in a few years. The reason I say this is because I can already notice that I have less and less demand for websites and so forth and more and more demand for interactive applications that will run on devices. And in many cases HTML5 frameworks that package these apps are just not best solution and can't do a lot of things we need them to, we can easily do with Flash/AIR (or Silverlight).
So yes, people will be using iPads, TVs, in car computers, mobile phones etc etc to get their content, previous accessible from websites only. I'm not saying web will be dead, you will have HTML5 websites/apps and all that good stuff but it will be more simplified.. blogs, some apps that won't be demanding in terms of some crazy UIs and media experiences but straightforward stuff you can do/simply animate with JS. You will still be able to experience these on different devices (and that's where compatibility plays a positive role with HTML5, but it's not really anything new.. HTML4 is also compatible and will work). .HTML5 is just a buzzword.. hype that Steve Jobs raised by trying to justify absence of Flash on his own devices because it would take control out of his hands.
In this, I actually see WebGL being dead as a door nail btw.. After seeing Molehill from Adobe and what Unity3D is doing.. and transferring it to devices and all that stuff.. WebGL looks downright funny.
So yes.. in the end.. Silverlight will rule everything Microsoft on devices.. AIR will rule the rest.. HTML5 will be just for a bit more advanced websites that would kind of act as apps but more universal and it won't really take advantage of device features it runs on and it will still be run through a browser naturally.
- btw, ukit.. here's the IE9 thing I told you about.. http://www.downloads… and yeah, Microsoft will push Silverlight to build these as well.Boz
- Silvelight for development of these as well. They basically want you to build apps not websites.Boz
- And these web apps will probably be also HTML5 for the most part.Boz
- "indirect dig at flash" Tinfoil hat much?PIZZA
- ukit0
Boz you have your opinion...but it's pretty presumptious of you to declare "we don't discuss this anymore because I'm always right."
How can you be right about something that hasn't happened yet?
First off, you mischaracterize what HTML5 is. Yes, HTML5 will take over everything, the same way HTML4 did. Duh. The part you mean to contest is the idea that certain aspects of HTML5 will trump Flash and Silverlight. And it sounds like Microsoft is in fact saying they believe that will happen on the web.
Now everyone agrees mobile is an exciting new area in interactive media and will see a lot of growth. But this idea that the future of "everything" will be phones and TV and entertainment devices seems massively overhyped to me and, I think, most people.
What are people going to do at work all day, use their iPad? Are we going to design on a TV or a phone? Use some common sense.
But even IF that was true and the regular web disappears completely (lol) the idea that it's a given that the likes of Air and Silverlight will dominate those platforms is massively premature. They haven't even gained a toehold in those markets yet.
You can rant all you want about Apple and Steve Jobs (which have nothing to do with this) but at the end of the day, being dropped from the regular web is a pretty big blow and the responses of the Silverlight devs in the forum post I linked earlier tell you that.
- Boz0
Here's what's going to happen so we don't discuss this anymore cause I'm always right :)
- Silverlight will be used like AIR.. and it will be used on all Microsoft products. Mobile, netbooks, Windows, Xbox 360 etc etc...
- HTML5 will not kill anything. If we saw only a handful of real web application done in JS like Wordpress, Basecamp shit etc.. HTML5 won't magically transform everything by introducing a few new tags in there. Let's face it HTML5 apps are written in JS.. So it will be just like it was until now.. maybe a bit easier and more universal and you will have a simple video and you'll be able to draw some shit directly onto canvas but that's pretty much it.
- The future of applications, web and everything else switches to devices as front end (google TV, mobile devices, roku boxes etc etc) being in your living room, on the go etc.. and you will build apps for it and those apps (interfaces/front ends) will connect to the web to read and write to databases, pull information and images and videos and so on.. and yes, some simple apps who don't have the need for native APIs of the device will indeed be written in HTML5 but most apps will need to have access to direct hardware and that's all gonna be Silverlight/AIR type of deal.
And MG Spiegler and Steve Jobs and whoever else can hope that HTML5 will take over everything, but we all know it's a pipe dream.
Are we clear here? :)
- ukit0
"Silverlight is still important to us" is textbook PR slang for "Silverlight will be gone is 2 years."
If it was really so important, you wouldn't need to issue a statement on it, would you?:)
- he said that because of the blogs and garbage like that article that spreads the whole "Silverlight is dead" shit.. so he assures people that it's BS and that they still have Silvelright as the main platform.Boz
- assures people that it's BS and that they still have Silvelright as the main platform.Boz
- He has to confirm that because he was, as always, taken out of context by Apple fans who write these articles.. Funny how they all come from well know Apple fanboy editors.Boz
- all come from well know Apple fanboy editors.Boz
- No, the whole thing started because Microsoft barely discussed Silverlight at their dev conference.ukit
- What I meant is that if it was really so important, they would have devoted time to it and no one would have raised these questions.ukit
- questions. It's kind of like when Bush says "Donald Rumsfeld's position is totally secure" and then fires him in a couple weeks:)ukit
- weeks:)ukit
- ukit0
Nonsense. Everyone who knows the tech industry reads this as hanging Silverlight out to die. You don't kill a project in one press release. It happens slowly, over the course of a few years. This is clearly the first step though, ostracizing it to the unproven niche platform of WP7.
- Boz0
They are not switching to HTML5 for everything else wth are you talking about.. Silverlight is their main software development platform.. read the link I posted..
HTML5 will be for simple stuff.. just like it should be and he's touting HTML5 because they want IE9 to become a main browser again so it's their ace in their sleeve.. it has nothing to do with HTML5 being their main platform for development.. what a bunch of garbage.
- correction: HTML5 will be for simple web app stuff.. just like it should be for the most part.Boz
- ukit0
ROFL
Cmon...if Microsoft drops support for Silverlight on what is by far the largest platform (the web) and says it will only be used on mobile, how can that possibly be construed as a win? Silverlight was ALREADY the dev environment for WP7. The only news here is that they are switching to HTML5 for everything else.
What's the userbase for the web vs. Windows Phone 7?
- Boz0
It's also funny how not one Apple fanboy knew anything about HTML and other shit and now everyone is for HTML5.. It's very obvious cult behavior.. as soon as Steve Jobs pronounces something, they will repeat and try to follow that word to the end of the world.. no matter what.
Truly fantastic.
- Boz0
And just an update that confirms that microsoft is pushing silverlight even more then before:
http://team.silverlight.net/anno…
It's funny how Apple freaks take out everything they can out of context to try to make words of their god $teve Jobs less idiotic.
- so it's a non-story.. nobody is dropping anything.. move on.Boz
- Boz0
Not that I'm shocked a the article because it comes from the famous Apple butt-licker MG Siegler at Tech Crunch who is known to throw shit at other people when they show him how deluded he is with Apple.
- Boz0
First of all this article is very misleading.. Microsoft didn't quit Silverlight.. they are using it for Windows Phone 7 which is undoubtably the next generation stuff.
As I mentioned everyone believes web as we know it is dead.. everything is moving towards devices and running apps on TVs, mobiles, refrigirators and bunch of other shit and connecting to APIs..
They are pushing Silverlight as application development platform that runs on their devices (Zune, Windows Phone 7, even Xbox 360)..HTML5 is just something that will be used for simpler apps and obviously the web as HTML has been used forever.
- He says in the third paragraph it will be used for WP7ukit
- ukit0
@ephix
Typical comment from Silverlight dev:
"I think that Bob Muglia has just killed Silverlight. It's done. It's all over.
This is because, as Bart Czernicki said in this thread, CIO's will read this and drop or avoid Silverlight starting back whenever this was said. They will be correct, of course, in doing so since MS no longer considers it the tool for a cross-platform run time.
I'm really disappointed to hear this news as I have personally put in a great deal of time learning Silverlight and all the rest that goes with it. The only good I can take from this is that I will never have to implement the dreadful MVVM.
Maybe I'll become an IPhone developer."
- georgesIII0
And people still don't believe in God.
*sigh
- d_rek0
So nobody has tried Kinect?