by Don Burnett
I read many blogs, one of my favorites is by Aral Balkan. He keeps me up with what's going on in the Adobe community and also is working on a data exchange format called SWX for Flash and other technologies including PHP and others that allows you to pass complex data objects between server and client. At the end of year we all blog about predictions for the year ahead. His blog states "In my predictions for 2008, I talked about how we will be seeing more RIAs in 2008 -- both from Adobe and third parties -- how Silverlight is not going to have a widespread impact".
I have a very hard time not looking back at 2007 for myself and seeing the impact first hand. Silverlight is only in it's infancy. It isn't to version 9.0 like Adobe Flash is. I like Flash, I have used it on website designs ever since the days it was something called FutureSplash Animator. During that time FutureSplash was working with Microsoft to make it one of the first ActiveX controls for Internet Explorer 4.0. I was also there for ActionScript 1.0... and so forth.. Don't get me wrong I love Flash, but it's not the end-all multimedia plug-in. It fits the needs of many people but it's not a one-size fits all proposition.
I only need to look back some to look ahead...
Silverlight has been around for about nine months, before that it was called WPF/E.. What has nine months brought us... Well lets take a look at some Silverlight 1.0 applications..
A new world of video for the web and unparalleled functionality...
SilverlightTV Demo (Count em 9 Picture-in Picture Video sources)
Video Puzzles in 720p HD
Video Overlay for Advertising
Dynamic Languages running cross platform (with Silverlight 2.0, still in development) with Intellisense...
Virtual Earth Viewer
Video Editing from inside a Web Browser (Metaliq's Top Banana)
I look at these examples and I find myself in saying wow! I don't think we would have ever seen things like this a year ago, especially inside a web browser.. It has become a platform unto itself, running independently of any operating system, but running in many (including Safari and the Apple Macintosh).
But it's not just these examples, we see many being used in real life. Microsoft is busy documenting these world-wide and you can see them at Silverlight.net.. Before Silverlight the web had no HD video (even from those other guys out there). Let's face it the prevailing multimedia plug-in (when Silverlight came along) had no reason to improve or get better and only saw gradual UI/Animation/Video improvements. The web browser has become the center of life now for many users and their applications. Even with Silverlight being so new, the technology reflects that now mostly centrist view that many people have.
Building on that, how about a full "You Tube" style video site sample so you can build your own, with full media encoding? Thank you Vertigo..
The fact is Silverlight has had a very huge impact on the web already. If you want to see more go to Silverlight.net. In the showcase right now there are more than 94 different applications from over 30 countries profiled. If that's not impact, You've got me..
As far as it goes for My predictions for 2008, a new improved 2.0 with much of the functionality already available to Windows applications (WPF), and a great integration story with browsers and platforms..
One of the things people are predicting for 2008 is advances in 3D. Silverlight at the moment doesn't include it's own in-built3D engine, much like Adobe Flash. Mostly this is due to the need for hardware accelerated 3D but no way to know this is available because it runs in the browser and just what capabilities it might have (like shader technology and hardware acceleration).
That doesn't mean you can't run a Windows Application with Accelerated 3D right now from an IE browser window. The only caveat, is this isn't cross-platform like Silverlight and you must be on a Windows OS to view. But exciting as well, is the fact that, even with those limitations people are doing some great no-install applications. Including this one from a Japanese Zoo, which is an incredible 3D multimedia learning experience.
So if you think Silverlight isn't making a serious impact, you only have to look at what's really going on to see that 2007 has been a great year for the technology and 2008 is going to be an even greater year, especially with .NET 3.5's release and Silverlight 2.0's impending release which adds the power of .Net applications to the "mix".. It's been an exciting year for innovation and there will be even more this next year..
.
1 comment:
I am an oldtime Microsoft and Don Burnett fan. Having said that, I have some observations on SilverLight that I will comment on.
When it comes to SilverLight, the current edition (1.0) is not even platform parity with Flash MX 2004 which is the edition I am most familiar with. I, from both a Visual Studio developer as well as a Flash developer perspective have had difficulty getting Blend to do the most basic event driven activities with SilverLight. It does tweening OK, however I'd used programs in the 90's that did that well.
One thing Microsoft keeps falling on their face with is how to get software developers and designers to work together. With Visual Studio .Net/2003/2005 this was supposed to happen through the separation of backend coding from the front-end html development. Unfortunately the RunAt="Server" requirement for .Net controls in web development pretty much required either the designers to know the idiosyncracies of Microsofts additions to the markup language, or for the developers to touch the designers work, potentially breaking it and preventing the separation between designers and developers.
I think Microsoft has missed the mark again with SilverLight. At one point they were strongly targeting designers who by training are strongly anti-Microsoft. By incorporating the .Net languages into SilverLight, I believe that Microsoft will engage a larger developer audience, however most of those folks could not develop an aestheticly attractive application to save their souls.
Microsoft needs to appeal to the "Renaissance Man" & "Renaissance Woman." Those individuals who have both aesthetic sensibilities as well as programming and development capabilities. These are a rare breed, but there is apparently such a market demographic as the targeting of Adobe's web development tools such as Flash and DreamWeaver attests.
Toward this end it would be great if Microsoft would reawaken their great vector/bitmap tool PhotoDraw with XAML support and additional behavior/scripting ability. In addition, rather than have SilverLight be a "me too" product in comparison to Flash, Microsoft should take the ballsy step of daring to make the SilverLight plug-in larger to incorporate the 3D capabilities of WPF. To support this development path, Microsoft should take their 3D modeling and rendering tool (or did they sell that off?) or buy another if need be and give that SilverLight 3D support/XAML support and downsize the tool to something that could be downloaded for free to compete with Googles Sketch product.
By tying an excellent vector/bitmap tool to SilverLight as opposed to the plain-Jane Expression Design you would gather a greater wow factor and faster uptake.
In addition, adding the 3D capability along with an excellent 3D tool, you would position SilverLight at the high end of capability, which we all know becomes mainstream capability rather quickly in the computer/Internet world.
With the prevalence of broadband and the ubiquitousness of 3D capable systems, I believe this is a gamble Microsoft should take.
I believe Microsoft programming tools and superior for user generated code, and would rather use Visual Studio for editing compared to the Flash MX 2004 editor. Microsoft learns quickly. Hopefully they are open to direction and become aware of this post. It may be that they already of plans of this nature, and just need time to envision, design and implement.
I think the real battle between Flash and Microsoft is 2-3 years down the road. Until then, SilverLight needs to fill in the gaps and build an identity.
Post a Comment