Microsoft announces Silverlight, a Flash competitor

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Utilities, Video

Microsoft announces Silverlight, a Flash competitor

by Chris Gilmer Apr 16th 2007

Microsoft Silverlight, in Microsoft's wording, is a next-generation, cross-platform, cross-browser web client runtime. In other words, a Flash competitor.

This is a runtime that will allow the playback of files using various forms of interactivity on both PC and Mac platforms. Silverlight will essentially deliver rich interactive applications for the web that incorporate video, animation, and interactivity. It also has the ability to run in fullscreen HD video mode while supporting 720p video, and through mobile devices.

Will this be a flash killer? Only time will tell, but Microsoft sure looks like they are pushing the whole rich and compelling web experience angle. There are more details as to Silverlights capabilities in an MSDN blog post. No word as to whether Microsoft will add support for Linux as of yet.

Check out the competition which also just launched this past weekend, Adobe Media Player, a standalone flash video player.

Tags: adobe, adobr media player, AdobrMediaPlayer, animation, cross browser, cross platform, CrossBrowser, CrossPlatform, devices, hd, linux, mac, microsoft, mobile, pc, runtime, silverlight, video

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ryan Carter said 9:05PM on 4-16-2007

Microsoft is late to the party once again. I don't see them overtaking Flash anytime soon, it is the de facto standard everywhere, and Microsoft will remain slow, buggy, and harder to implement.

Sven Schoene said 10:00PM on 4-16-2007

Hi,

thanks for the news Chris. I'm really looking forward to some competition for Flash, it will definitely not hurt Adobe to get forced to step their game up.

@Ryan:
Why so negative? Yes, it is the de-facto standart, but just because there is no alternative. Take a look at most of the webdesign community. People hate Flash because it's slow, not indexable by search engines and much more. As much as I like really good Flash sites, these argumens are valid.

Sven Schoene

Sven Schoene said 10:01PM on 4-16-2007

Also, take a look at the video and the website. I'm really looking forward to it. Maybe this will be a stepping-stone to Web 3.0 or 4.0?

Sven Schoene
http://www.SvenSchoene.de

emor8t said 6:11AM on 4-17-2007

As a web designer, if this is easier to use than flash I will switch in a hurry. I can't stand flash for that, and the reasons Sven lists.

However, I will have to see what flash is like with the Adobe CS3 family is like. My main gripe about flash is that it just isn't developer friendly, in my opinion anyways. I love Adobe products, and I would hope Adobe would fix flash, but who knows.

I will be messing around with SilverLight if I can.

ken said 11:17AM on 4-17-2007

Alright. I'm a web designer, on a Mac mostly, but use a PC just as often. So cross-platform is an issue close to my heart.

I thought it odd that when I went to check out the video demo of Silverlight on Microsoft's site it didn't play in any browser for a Mac.... maybe they should have embedded the file in a Flash movie...

Is Microsoft promising cross-platform and not going to make good on delivering?

BlackCoffeeNoSugar said 12:52PM on 4-17-2007

Will they support Linux?

Ankher said 9:46PM on 4-17-2007

Yeah! What about Linux? I saw the on both Windows and Mac platforms stuff and immediately thought, what about Linux?

I really think it won't do anything to Flash, but it would be nice to be able to do more with it/drive costs down for Flash

Ken said 9:02AM on 4-18-2007

I would like to know in what ways would Silverlight be better than Flash, and if it would be worth it.

By "it" I mean the need for developers to learn a new tool and its language (such as Flash & Actionscript), the need for developers to deliver their content in another format, and the need for users to download another plug-in for their browsers.

James said 12:31PM on 4-18-2007

The one and only killer issue will be if MS submits Silverlight as an open standard. Some people might argue to the contrary, but no one could convince me that Flash's proprietary nature has not harmed it greatly. I bet there would be an order of magnitude more Flash games, etc. online if the standard were open and there were a chance at getting some good open source (/free) development tools for it. It may be the de-facto standard now, but that's only because nobody has stepped up and offered a decent alternative. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that MS succeeds on this one.

Loren said 12:33AM on 4-20-2007

Silverlight seems to be an interesting alternative to Flash. Flash development always sucked, and switching over to a XML based system definately has its benefit. More to the point, I wonder if it is possible to load dynamic XAML files... (as in, will it be possible to manipulate the XAML file on the server before it is loaded by the browser and displayed by the silverlight plugin)... We may end up with .NET-type model for XAML files, which could actually be quite interesting, especially if, like Ken stated, common libraries such as XAML-controls come into being. Could be interesting to watch this one develop...

Matt said 6:17PM on 4-26-2007

By definition, a Rich Internet Application runs on its own client, not in a web browser. If Silverlight is just a browser plugin, the use of "RIA" in their marketing is misleading. Adobe Apollo is a RIA platform, Yahoo Widget Engine is a RIA platform. But so far, Silverlight just looks like a Flash wanna-be.

Apollo's fatal flaw is "view source" - a feature Adobe shows off proudly. If MS gives us a standalone Silverlight runtime that runs compiled code, then we'll have a platform we can use for secure corporate RIAs, and Silverlight will have a compelling reason to choose it over Flash.

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