Thursday, September 13, 2007

Ted On Flex - Is MS providing false advertising?

Ted disagrees with Microsoft's Streaming Service advertising. 

Personally I think it is wrong to call this streaming. Even worse is that at IBC Microsoft is touting their low cost for "Streaming" solutions. Given this is their definition of "Streaming", then streaming content for Flash Player has always been free by comparison.

Source: Ted On Flex

Ted's site links to the Flex Directory, a listing of consulting firms that provide development services for Adobe Flex.

Microsoft had better start cold-calling these folks now!

I wonder how MS is doing filling the 30 positions that were open in April on the Silverlight team.

Compare that to the 9 positions available in April of 2006 on the Adobe Flex team.

Of course, Flex is Open Source, which probably means they have way more developers working on Flex apps by now.

How many? How about a totally unscientific way of tracking popularity? 

1.4M results for "Adobe Flex" from Google.
1.5M results for "Microsoft Silverlight" from Microsoft.

761K results for "Adobe Flex" job.  That could be jobs that have flex time and need Adobe skills tho.
420K results for "Microsoft Silverlight" job.

Chad Udell gave his reasons back in April Why Microsoft Silverlight Will Fail.

Hey, it's not MS Bob, alright?  Something tells me there's room for two Flash-type plugins, just like there's room for 2 major browsers. 

Someone from the Silverlight team must have read Chad's post, as his reasons for failure are getting stale with each release.

Can't you use Expression Blend on a Mac?  Just install Parallels & Windows. :) 

No Linux Plugin? Moonlight.

Market Penetration?  British Museum, CBS, Major League Baseball, Emmy's, MSN, at least 2 case studies... yeah, a ways to go yet.... but can you spell W-I-N-D-O-W-S  U-P-D-A-T-E?  The Real Silverlight (v1.1) isn't even in release mode yet.  And wait for SP2.

Mobile Content?  Why not?  Silverlight Mobile for Windows?

Maturity?  Windows Media (the basis for Silverlight's audio & video functionality) has been around for 13 years. 

Developer Community?  MS probably has one of the largest communities around.  Of course I'm biased because I have never programmed in ActionScript and Visual Studio is something I open almost every day.

Pay-for-situation?  What about Flash Media Server?  How much is that again? 

CS3?  Well...  Paint.NET isn't quite the competition for Photoshop... and Publisher won't get rid of Illustrator's market dominance, but that's what Adobe's job is supposed to be.

Ted may disagree with the advertising of Silverlight Streaming, and Chad may think MS will fail with Silverlight, but I doubt that will stop Microsoft from directing their billions and evangelist minions toward eventual market dominance.  Adobe's Market Cap is $26 Billion.  MSFT's is a mere $273 Billion.  Kachomp.

MS just needs to buy Apple, or Adobe, or maybe hire Steve Jobs... or Bruce Chizen of Adobe, and somehow convince a legion of Adobe/Macromedia/Mac graphics geeks that they should come to the dark side. 

I'm still trying to figure out Silverlight's positioning in the grand scheme of things though.  A Windows Developer geek designing graphics and animations?  A Mac design geek using Visual Studio?  I'm still trying to figure out how the two can work together on the same platform without bumping into each other... 

Is that the Silverlight Architecture diagram behind Darth?  Nope, must be slide 2.

Kind of reminds me of Presentation Zen's comparison of Bill Gates & Steve Jobs presentation styles.

Top 10 reasons why Microsoft Silverlight will succeed

1 comment:

Chad Udell said...

Hey, great post. it like a good natured debate on this topic. Silverlight does have it's merits, I'l give you that... but I still can't compile it on my Mac ;-)

The fact that the SilverLight Mobile is only for Windows Mobile is very telling of their true support for Mobile multimedia delivery... What about Symbian devices?

Chad Udell