Microsoft's SkyDrive Drops Silverlight 358
mikejuk writes "Microsoft's SkyDrive, a web service that provides cloud storage for end user files, has just acquired a revamped user interface — and it is HTML5 based. Yes, another Microsoft website has dropped Silverlight. How can Microsoft expect independent developers to base their future on Silverlight when Microsoft itself is abandoning it like a sinking ship? Whatever happened to 'eating your own dog food'? It seems that now Microsoft would rather eat dog food made elsewhere..."
MS hate (Score:5, Insightful)
And regardless, HTML5 was nowhere to be seen when Silverlight came out. It was needed back then, if only as a competitor for Flash. Have you noticed Silverlight hasn't even had the same security concerns and exploits as Flash?
This is a good thing from Microsoft, not bad. Stop bashing them for everything they do, even if its a good thing.
Re:MS hate (Score:5, Funny)
You have to be fair; noone will exploit a plugin nobody has installed or uses.
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You have to be fair; noone will exploit a plugin nobody has installed or uses.
Netflix is still using Silverlight, right? Doesn't that mean it has a reasonably large user base?
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No when you count the users on iPhones, PS3s, Androids, Rokus, Boxees, Wiis, Xbox 360s, TiVos, Wimpy7s, etc etc.
No Silverlights there, and becoming practically irrelevant except for PCs.
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You missed his point. Most users of Netflix are not on PCs. Hell, 30% are on Playstation alone.
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http://riastats.com/
Silverlight is actually on 75% of Internet browsers.
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They left out a couple of pretty big operating systems: iOS and Android. This is weird considering they listed Symbian and Windows Mobile. The real percentage is going to be significantly less than that. But for the sake of argument, pretend it's accurate. That means that it isn't on 25% of internet browsers.
If you are building for the web, that's a huge number to ignore. Especially when there are competitive technologies available with far better numbers. Why would you chose Silverlight for anything but th
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And I keep removing it after my workplace keeps installing it! I'm going to have to do what I did with the policies and create a restricted folder with the same name to cause it to error out on install.
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One would have to ask why you bother going through all that effort? How is it harmful to have Silverlight on your system? It isn't. In fact, it's pretty lightweight, installs very quickly (either via Windows update or via a link that anyone can click), doesn't gum up or muck up a system or use resources when not in use...
Seriously, your efforts seem rather irrational to me. What exactly is the point?
Given how few PCs are connected to televisions (Score:3)
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According to the Sony E3 conference, the PS3 was the most used Netflix streaming device (According to Netflix, 30% I believe, but more than any other device.)
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I use mine on the PS3. I would use it on my computer, but I refuse to install Silverlight. However, I'm guessing I'm in the minority.
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30% of all Netflix users use a PS3 for streaming (according to Jack Tretton [who cited Netflix] at the Sony E3 conference.)
So, you are not alone.
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I use it all the time, so that's one. I bet a lot of laptop owners use it too. I would use it on my Ion/Atom HTPC, but Silverlight still doesn't have GPU acceleration so I use my BD player in the living room.
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You can tell by the pixels.
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Netflix can continue to use Silverlight even if Microsoft deprecates it.
As for the "developers", I'm pretty sure Microsoft has a good idea of the real numbers. Apparently they don't think it's enough to worry about.
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Microsoft isn't afraid to move on when they need to. There are still a lot of people who rely on VB6. I bet there were a lot more VB6 developers when they dumped it for .Net than there are Silverlight developers today. I think it's pretty clear that HTML5 is much more important to the tech sector than Silverlight and it would be silly for them not to fully embrace HTML5.
Now they need to get rid of their XPS document format and use HTML5 or at least PDF.
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Microsoft has been trying to push people off of IE6 for years now. Sure, they're not somehow pulling the plug on them (how exactly would they do that?) but they've been at the forefront of pushind web developers to drop support for IE6 and encourage any IE6 users they detect to upgrade/update their browser. So your comment is sort of out of place and unwarranted.
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Being unafraid to move on when they need to doesn't imply that they always move on when they should.
Plus one could argue that IE6 was critical to far, far more people than Silverlight currently is. If they wanted to kill Silverlight or relegate it to just mobile development, they could do so and it would only be disruptive to a pretty small segment.
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Next to flash, that's a drop in the bucket. I offer you two boxes. One contains 1 million dollars, the other 1 billion dollars. I will give you one and only one, no tricks. Which do you take?
Re:MS hate (Score:5, Insightful)
Captive audience for PC users. It made their service worse, an I stopped using it on a PC unless I had no other choice.
I will rejoice when Silverlight dies the death it deserves.
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DRM is exactly what Microsoft said Siliverlight should be used for on the (public) web.
Re:MS hate (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a perfect example of "damned if they do, damned if they don't".
Oh, and typical Slashdot bullshit :)
Re:MS hate (Score:4, Insightful)
How is this an example of "damned if they do, damned if they don't"? Microsoft made Silverlight, pushed a lot of sites to use it at the displeasure of many (Netflix), now they are dropping support?
This is rather an example of MS making crap, MS pushing crap, and MS not being able to support their own crap, but still wanting everyone to use it. That's not damned if you do or don't, that's just everyone saying "It sucks, stop pushing it when you can't even use it."
I.E. - Windows Vista
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How is this an example of "damned if they do, damned if they don't"? Microsoft made Silverlight, pushed a lot of sites to use it at the displeasure of many (Netflix), now they are dropping support?
MS uses Silverlight, the nerds rage. MS stops using Silverlight, the nerds rage.
Re:MS hate (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft made Silverlight, pushed a lot of sites to use it at the displeasure of many (Netflix), now they are dropping support?
1. How did Microsoft "push" Netflix?
2. When did Microsoft "drop support" for Silverlight?
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They share a board member, if I remember correctly.
You remember wrong. Reed Hastings [wikipedia.org] is the Netflix CEO (not board member -- big difference) -- and he serves on Microsoft's Board. In short he gets to pull Ballmer's strings, but not vice versa.
They also did so to the ire of most users. Silverlight was initially not available on all platforms, such as linux. As a linux user myself, that meant the console I built for my TV no longer worked with Netflix. That support has been added, but is still not up to par (in my opinion) to Flash for in browser viewing. It was "pushed" because the it was NOT a user driven feature. In fact, the forums were filled with anger and hate. Whether it was DRM or not, MS pushed itself as a solution.
Orthogonal issue + rambling. You claimed Microsoft *pushed* Netflix to use Silverlight. How?
When they stop using it. A better term may have been to say that they stopped eating their own dog food. They don't support it in the sense of lending it credibility, not in terms of "customer support", but more in the sense of moral support. If Google employees stopped using Gmail and instead switched to Exchange, I'd consider that dropping internal support. They would no longer support Gmail as the best option, in that case.
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean45 [microsoft.com] In short, you'll hear about it from Microsoft when they decide to discontinue support. And when you hear about it, you'll have 1 year to act, from that point. And you'll have paid su
Re:MS hate (Score:5, Informative)
When Silverlight 1 came out in 2007, there were three competitors for it:
- ActiveX which was a horrible 90s idea and is unable to function in a world where you can't trust people not to try to build exploits
- Java which was so bad at doing what it was supposed to do that it went from almost 100% market share to almost 0% with the rise of Flash.
- Flash which did the job it was supposed to do but had horrible development tools and literally hundreds of security problems since then due to shoddy product quality
Microsoft created Silverlight to solve these shortcomings and they did a pretty good job at it. Programming web code in Visual Studio is a leaps better than Flash and the Netflix probably saved millions by not wasting their developers' time with the horrible Flash UI and code oddities.
Only now, four years later, is HTML5 beginning to come to a point where it can be a proper tool to do what you used to use one of the above plugins for.
And by the way, IT changes fast in general, no developer can honestly expect to code in the same language from college to retirement. HTML5 - and the languages that you actually write code in like JQuery - are in an extreme prototype state right now, going to change radically several times in the next years before people figure out that they completely screwed up some important paradigms and start parts of the standard from scratch for HTML6. Everyone will have to keep relearning their languages if they want to stay current.
Re:MS hate (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, there is no hate.
It's more of a Ha-Ha http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo [youtube.com] to the developers that dared to try to make $ on a MS technology.
Almost every company that has worked with MS has gotten stabbed in the back.
Re:MS hate (Score:5, Funny)
Almost every company that has worked with MS has gotten stabbed in the back.
Look on the bright side. At least you get to keep the knife.
Re:MS hate (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, there is no hate.
Against MS?
It's more of a Ha-Ha to the developers that dared to try to make $ on a MS technology.
A "Ha-Ha" motivated by hatred towards MS.
Almost every company that has worked with MS has gotten stabbed in the back.
More MS hate.
and your sig
Microsoft: Making "just good enough" products to keep people from using "Good" or "Great" products since 95'
More MS hate.
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Actually this time I would say it's not really "slashdot" whining, just a small but loud minority of developers who backed Silverlight. Most of the rest of us don't care, though I do feel like saying "I told you to so" to some annoying pro-Microsoft developers I worked with who used to try push Silverlight down our throats almost religiously.
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True. It's more of them "using the appropriate tool for the job". Silverlight might have other / better uses elsewhere, not a Web UI, what with tools like HTML 5 and CSS3. This is good news.
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Yup. Silverlight is just poorly marketed. When originally it was called WPF/E (WPF Everywhere), and .NET devs were begging for it, it was to be used for line of business applications and optimized for browser experience in a _somewhat_ cross platform manner.
This was in contrast with XBAP, which is pure WPF (the newer UI tech of .NET), which works in a browser sandbox but only on Windows, but isn't really designed from the ground up for it.
But then someone at Microsoft decided they wanted to take on Flash. T
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It's good for the public and the browser makers. But damned annoying for the developers who believed the Silverlight evangelists preaching about how it was going to kill Flash.
It's also a bit irritating for those who invested time building Silverlight chart engines and other rich controls for reporting tools.
Re:MS hate (Score:4, Interesting)
Sometimes we bet on the wrong technology. Shit, like change, happens. All you can do is see it coming and move on to what did win.
Hell, I remember going through the same thing after putting a bunch of time into learning Borland OWL, back when it was competing with Microsoft's MFC. I was too evangelical myself at the time to see what was going to happen and I paid for it.
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Hell, I remember going through the same thing after putting a bunch of time into learning Borland OWL, back when it was competing with Microsoft's MFC. I was too evangelical myself at the time to see what was going to happen and I paid for it.
In fairness, people still fondly remember Borland OWL, and their charming yellow-on-blue IDE, failure though OWL may have been. My memories of MFC give me haunting chills.
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Sometimes we bet on the wrong technology.
Not even really. Silverlight was (and is) an alternative to its contemporary competitors: Flash and Javascript.
It offered a superior offering. Now HTML 5, almost five years later is offering something new and advantageous in the form of native support on multiple platforms/form factors.
5 years is a long time in the tech world.
Silverlight, Flash, and vector animation (Score:2)
But damned annoying for the developers who believed the Silverlight evangelists preaching about how it was going to kill Flash.
I knew Silverlight was never going to kill Flash. It might have killed Flex and Flash Builder, but not Flash CS. Did Microsoft ever make a tool for authoring vector animations (e.g. Homestar Runner or Weebl's stuff) in Silverlight?
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It's good for the public and the browser makers.
But nowhere do you see people focusing on this. The wording of this story, like almost any story on Slashdot about MS or Apple, is pure trolling.
But damned annoying for the developers who believed the Silverlight evangelists preaching about how it was going to kill Flash.
Anyone who believed that deserves what they get.
It's also a bit irritating for those who invested time building Silverlight chart engines and other rich controls for reporting tools.
And the same here.
But none of that detracts from the general idea that the less requirements for the use of Silverlight (and Flash) on the web in favor of HTML5, the better.
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Shops that heavily invested in Silverlight deserve getting razed for it.
When all the post-PC news does not involve MS nor MS technologies to any significant degree, going SIlverlight to shortcut real development is pure, moronic suicide. In fact at this point, heavily investing in any MS-technologies without hedging (such as DirectX while the rest of the mobile world is OpenGLES 2.x) is just daft.
Re:MS hate (Score:5, Insightful)
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Has this ever happened to Perl, Python, PHP, or Ruby developers?.
YES!
Microsoft dropped support for both IronRuby and IronPython.
oh wait, that's not what you meant is it....
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Your own experience shows that this is not so. It seemed like a good decision for all the reasons you mention, but the unixoid world was the one that remained stable and predictable while still experiencing enormous growth. Excluding consumer PCs, unixoid platforms hold by far the lion's share of heavy industrial computing across the board, not Microsoft. You bet wrong because decis
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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He probably just found out about it.
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The $150 million "bailout" (by buying stock and promising to continue selling a very profitable product, in exchange for cross-licensing and an end to a long-running lawsuit) of a company that had billions of dollars *in cash*? That "bailout"?
Go troll somewhere else.
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They had ~$1.5 billion in cash. It's in their SEC filing for the year. They had many billions in revenues, they had healthy margins on their products. They also had a lot of write offs and purchases that year, including buying NeXT for over $300 million.
Apple did not need Microsoft's purchase of $150 million in stock. Had the purchase never happened, Apple would still be doing fine today.
That purchase of stock was part of a settlement between Apple and Microsoft, which included ending long-running litigatio
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Have you noticed Silverlight hasn't even had the same security concerns and exploits as Flash?
It's certainly had its fair share of "critical updates"... ...none of which have managed to install itself on any of my machines.
I'm pretty sick of saying "don't install this" after it fails for the umpteenth time (but still asks me to reboot my machine anyway).
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Have you noticed Silverlight hasn't even had the same security concerns and exploits as Flash?
In fairness, the lack of "security concerns" in Silverlight compared to Flash in this case is rather similar to Linux's lack of "security concerns" compared to Windows. It's just not used nearly as much.
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So Microsoft starts using standards compliant HTML5 instead of Silverlight on their sites and you bash them for it? Seriously?
The submitter must be one of many bitter developers who bought into Silverlight to begin with.
Re:MS hate (Score:5, Insightful)
> So Microsoft starts using standards compliant HTML5 instead of Silverlight on their sites and you bash them for it? Seriously?
No, we bash them for pushing one technology on their customers for the sake of getting them locked in, while internally they know those technologies suck and they use better stuff for themselves. The way Bing uses Hadoop is another example. And the way they're soon to be a big postgres shop (skype) yet another.
They know what the right technologies are. But they keep selling their developers on other stuff.
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Yup. It's simple - Silverlight has failed, and it is a mixed fault between the developers and Microsoft. Anyone targeting Silverlight at this point is an idiot - the writing is on the wall and it has been for a long time.
Things that are Microsoft's fault - Not making clearer specs so third-party implementations (Moonlight) could maintain parity with Silverlight in terms of support, instead of lagging behind like Moonlight has. Moonlight has been a failure because it has never supported anything other tha
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It is probably from a Linux user who thinks the Desktop still has a bright future too. Being that the desktop is the only Market where Microsoft Dominates, (Other markets Microsoft may lead, but with competition close behind where they can just run away with it), but in the rest of the industry Microsoft while a major player isn't as big as it use to be, and cannot survive with the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish anymore, they kinda need to play by the standards and do what the standards say.
Silverlight "devel
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I think the issue is not them dropping Silverlight per se, but them selling Silverlight to partners like the best thing since sliced bread for a few years, and then dropping it like hot potatoes when management at last realized that nobody wants Yet Another Plugin (tm), especially one that does not much but duplicate pre-existing plugins, only with an MS badge and less multiplatform support.
Nobody ever really needed a competitor to Flash. We needed Flash to get better, and/or vanish. Not Flash Jr.
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sorry, missed a cut and paste.
All that why not really, frankly, appraising developpers of what the outlook for Silverlight is.
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I haven't seen a single non-Microsoft site that used Silverlight.
Have you seen netflix.com's streaming site?
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MS embracing open standards and specs is a good thing.
Microsoft knows fine well that Microsoft always has three Es in embrace. They are not coming over to HTML 5 for the good of the standard of to help save the world. They are doing it in order to have developer tools which work on HTML 5 and so limit their loss of market share. Their long term aim will be to destabilize and misappropriate the standard. There is nothing good about Microsoft getting involved in any standard. Look at the history of OOXML [groklaw.net]. Look at how they attempted to take over Kerberos [networkworld.com].
Best option (Score:3)
Sure, it's stabbing their "Developers! Developers! Developers!" in the back, but isn't it a positive that they moving to more widespread technologies?
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stabbing their "Developers! Developers! Developers!" in the back
They've simply updated their motto: "Die! Die! DIE!"
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It isn't stabbing anybody in the back until they drop support for the platform.
Responding to the market and building stuff that will work on the machines of your target market is called flexibility and responsiveness.
If you can deliver a better experience with HTML5, then it makes sense to do it. Developers might look at this move and get the sense that it may (though in some cases maybe not) be wise for them to follow suit - not because Microsoft is dropping the platform, but because you can get better res
Re:Best option (Score:4, Informative)
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You call that resting easy? Because of Silverlight, I cannot see any live stream from many sites (e.g. Eurosport). Yes, I'm on Linux. No Linux is not supported, Moonlight for some reason never seems to be able to do streaming video, even though that is so far the only reason I've seen Silverlight being used *ever*. The faster it dies, the better.
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It just makes me think they're up to something nefarious with HTML5. You know, embrace, extend, etc.?
Objectivity (Score:3, Informative)
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You are on a site who's name is modeled after a unix convention. This isn't backslashdot.org
They don't (Score:3, Insightful)
"How can Microsoft expect independent developers to base their future on Silverlight when Microsoft itself is abandoning it like a sinking ship?"
They don't expect people to base their future on Silverlight. Why would anyone think that at this point?
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Netflix (Score:3, Insightful)
Now all we need is Netflix to abandon Silverlight...
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As soon as HTML5 has a DRM alternative for PCs. It's easier to control on embedded devices, on the other side.
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DRM, that's the kicker. Talk about HTML5 all we want--fact is, there still ain't a standard video type. I can see MS continuing to pull all sorts of nasty lock-in strategies even with open standards.
Re:Netflix (Score:5, Informative)
So that I can use it on linux?
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So it can work as well everywere as it does on my PS3 and Droid. Neither one of those uses silverlight.
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Flash on my Revo HTPC actually works quite well - Silverlight's lack of GPU acceleration makes it a non-starter. 5 is supposed to have it, but no sign of it working yet & if MS ditches it it might never happen.
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Oh noes! (Score:3)
Microsoft is embracing a STANDARD that isn't tied to a closed language they invented. Oh, the horror. I know, it's terrible for coders that learned Silverlight. Once upon a time, I learned Pascal. I used it. It did stuff for me. And the industry moved on, and Pascal is useless to me now. It's not even on my resume, because it's pointless. We're sorry that the world's progress risks making the time you spent learning that language/tool obsolete. Please move on.
They had to drop the beast... (Score:2)
...and I am happy to have been a [small] contributor to the outcome.
You see, I have resisted installing Silverlight on my Windows machines whenever I would be prompted to have it installed.
Microsoft must have gotten the message that Silverlight was not flying.
Good, they 'smelled the coffee'. I would like to hear what Microsoft zealots have to say about this.
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I did not bother with Silverlight because I just could not keep up with the speed in technology. I have stuck with Java and like it over here.
The presence of Android has made Java even more relevant no matter how one looks at it.
The overall problem with Microsoft is this: They are trying to get into every business by 'locking users in'. People do not like this. With all these blogs saying lies about Microsoft, the company should change and do it fast.
Here's my suggestion: Fire Steve Ballmer as an initial fi
Slashcode bashing?! (Score:2)
Ooh, is this finally a thread in which Slashcode [slashcode.com] bashing isn't offtopic?
What would you use to write slashcode in today if not mod_perl?
Actually, are there any viable alternatives to javascript? Other than, you know, flash?
Silverlight is dead. (Score:2)
Get over it.
Well that explains it (Score:2)
Obsolescence (Score:2)
Big companies always lose the plot eventually (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft did not realize the significance of TCP/IP when they released windows 95 .net fat client platform still thinking fat clients is where it is at.
Microsoft rolled out their
Virtual Earth failed to compete with Google Earth
Failed mobile phones
Failed MP3 players
Feel free to add to the long list.
Siverlight is just a small blip because it did not get the uptake MS had hoped for. They do this all the time. They try to compete on all fronts and never excel anywhere. MS product path is littered with abandoned poorly executed ideas some of which might have made it if they only committed to it. I feel sorry for those software companies that put all their eggs in the MS basket because their .net codebase will in the not too distant future be obsolete too.
It should be clear to everyone that operating systems are no longer significant. Running fat clients locally is no longer where it is at. PC's and Laptops are no longer the core device on which applications run. So the MS tax (Windows) on every PC will come to an end. MS is already far too late to change their direction with Windows and if MS doesn't get onto the web based bandwagon with MS Office quickly they will lose that profitable market as well.
It is a pity but unavoidable that successful companies get too big and too slow to respond to changes. Although it is thanks to MS that computing has become so accessible to the masses. They failed to pay attention over the last decade and foolishly thought they could direct their market. Developers trusting anything that MS put out over the last 5 years will wish they had not, no matter the promised potential.
Google was the new kid on the block with some amazing innovation but look closely at Google today and you can see the same warning signals. It is only a matter of time before the next company will take over from them.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95 [wikipedia.org]
"Windows 95 originally shipped without Internet Explorer, and the default network installation did not install TCP/IP, the network protocol used on the Internet."
I recall there was a third-party app that made access to the internet easier and many ISP's would ship that on their promotional Diskette.
You got a point though, MS might do better on the server front. Yet, various multimillion dollar projects that I consult for have steered away from MS server technology such
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Indeed! Why would you limit yourself to Windows machines!
Which is why they were using Silverlight, since its no limited to windows machines!
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That's because few ads are based on Silverlight.
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Sounds like doomed either way?
Most corporations don't need Silverlight anyways even with HTML 4 and ASP.NET you were able to make apps that needs to get done on a corporate level.
AJAX killed ActiveX, To bad those Old guys at IT in those corporations don't know that.
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I vote for a flying chair icon.