Disclaimer: I spent nine years (2000 – 2009) working on Flash and AIR at Macromedia/Adobe and I am no longer an employee. I like to say I bleed Flash red. I strongly believe in the Flash Platform and what Adobe has done and continues to do with it. I was given a free conference pass by some old friends at Microsoft so I could go enjoy the conference and learn more about what they have been doing. I feel obligated to blog about my experience. As you’ll see below, I think Microsoft is doing some really interesting things that will grow this industry. I also think they are making some mistakes (just like everyone else). I do not work for Microsoft nor have I been paid to say anything nice about them.
Last week I attended Microsoft’s third annual MIX conference in Las Vegas, NV. The event kicked off with a keynote by Microft Research’s Principal Researcher, Bill Buxton, and Scott Guthrie, GM of Microsoft’s .NET Developer Division. Buxton’s presentation on the importance design was interesting (he gives off a crazy-genius-in-a-good-way vibe) but I couldn’t help but feel that it was a little out-of-place. In fact, Buxton seemed out-of-place. I could picture his talk fitting in nicely at FiTC or SxSW but it seemed forced into the MIX schedule. Watch the video and tell me if you agree (though you kind of had to be there). I’ll admit that it might just be me – since I’ve always thought of Microsoft in a “Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers…” sort of way.
I thought Guthrie’s (or “The Gu” as the Microsofties seem to take every opportunity to call him – I mean, man, that guy is worshipped like a nerd God up in Redmond) keynote was very well-executed. He seems to be getting much more comfortable with being on stage. His tone seemed less, “here’s what we want to do to take over this space” and more “we’re here, we’re confident, and here’s what we’re doing”. The main focus was on the upcoming release of Silverlight 3 and the tools supporting it.
Silverlight 3
The key takeaway for me was that Silverlight 3 is catching up to Flash Player 10′s most shiny features like support for pixel shaders, h.264 and 2.5D. The one feature that did stand out as innovative was an API that gives access to the audio and video data on the client. I’ve advocated for such a feature to be added to Flash Player since version 8 but the business team chose not to for reasons that I probably shouldn’t disclose publicly. Now that Silverlight has this feature I won’t be surprised if it shows up in a future version of the Flash Player. Microsoft also added a “Silverlight Out-of-Browser” feature that will allow a user to right-click on any Silverlight content and choose to make it a standalone app that runs in a sandbox. The gut reaction of many in the audience was likely that this new feature will compete directly with Adobe AIR. The fact, however, that these Silverlight apps will run in a sandbox with limited OS-level integration and access to the filesystem, as well as a lack of custom chrome and other AIR features, means that this makes Silverlight more competitive with products like Google Gears and Chrome.
A Microsoft developer relations rep, Scott Barnes, appeared to disagree via his twitter feed:
@mossyblog: heh just heard a funny remark – Adobe just lot its AIR when it comes to Out of Browser – #mix09 (sorry it was funny)
@mossyblog: smiling at @ryanstewart from Adobe’s Silverlight vs Adobe AIR post.. he has more to learn me thinks #mix09
Others on twitter had similar impressions:
@dboynton: Watching Silverlight 3 running outside the browser. Will this kill Adobe AIR? It’s looking pretty damn good. #mix09
@imhassan: It’s on! Siliverlight vs. Adobe ‘Memory Hog’ Air!! #MIX09
@jorden112: Silverlight 3 running out of browser. Big announcement! Been waiting a while for that. Adobe AIR who? #mix09
I think this is a big part of Microsoft’s strategy. It works to their benefit when developers, designers, press, pundits, analysts, etc, mistakenly compare Silverlight to Adobe AIR. Why? Because it takes the attention off of the fact that Silverlight is fighting an up hill battle against the most-distributed piece of software in the history of the Web, the Flash Player, which has 98% penetration. Instead of people talking about how Silverlight compares to Flash Player, they’re talking about how it compares to Adobe’s new and much less dominant rich client. It’s a smart move if you ask me.
Overall, I think Silverlight 3 looks pretty good. I’m most impressed by how much Microsoft seems to have accomplished in such a short time. However, as my former Adobe colleagues pointed out, they had a pretty good blueprint to follow. :)
For a very good overview of all of the new Silverlight details, check out Microsoft Evangelist Tim Heuer’s blog.
Web Platform Installer 2
One of the most interesting announcements in the keynote was the Web Platform Installer 2. I think this is freakin’ brilliant. I mean this single offering probably best-illustrates Microsoft’s biggest advantage in waging it’s war on it’s competition in the rich media space.
In one click you can have Visual Studio and Silverlight Tools installed, IIS7 configured, Smooth Streaming enabled, etc. That’s right – a single installer gives you everything from clients to tools to servers – including the configuration of all three. I don’t think I need to say much more. This is huge. Adobe, take note.
Microsoft’s Tim Heuer has a good overview of Web Platform Installer 2 as well.
Expression Tools
Microsoft also announced (and former Macromedia Evangelist turned Microsoft Evangelist Jon Harris demoed in the keynote) new versions of their Expression Blend and Expression Web aimed at designers. Harris showed Expression Blend 3 (formerly known as Sparkle, Expression Interactive Designer, and probably a few other names) and a new feature called SketchFlow which allows designers to rapidly sketch out application prototypes. The demo was very impressive but I have to say that I was confused by the presentation and thought SketchFlow was a seperate product. I later clarified with a Microsoft rep that it is actually a feature of Blend. A trojan horse, if you will. What do I mean? Well, if Microsoft wants to get more designers to give Blend a try (something I doubt they’re having much luck with already) why not build in a feature that makes UX designers drool? Very smart. Very smart indeed.
They showed some other features of Blend 3, none of which come to memory. Here is a summary done by InformationWeek that might fill in the gaps.
The other Expression tool on display was Expression Web – which is their HTML WYSIWYG authoring tool. It had a few cool features, all but one of which I have forgotten. They showed a feature they call “SuperPreview” which lets you easily overlay the same HTML page as viewed in multiple browsers (versions, platforms, etc) on top of one another so you can easily identify inconsistencies between renderings – and fix them. This was a cool feature that commanded “oohs” and “ahhhs” from the audience. It stuck out in my mind because I remember the Adobe Dreamweaver team showing off something just like this in the “Sneaks” session at the Adobe MAX conference last year. I’m not sure if it was the same feature, but it sure reminded me of it.
Which leads to my concluding remarks about the conference as a whole.
Take-aways
I couldn’t help but recall a particular episode of South Park several times throughout the conference: episode 7 from season 6, “The Simpsons Already Did It”. In the episode the supporting character “Butters” decides to rebel against the social group that ostracized him by plotting evil deeds. The only problem was that The Simpsons had already done all of these deeds in previous episodes. While watching the features of Silverlight 3, Blend 3, and Web 3, I couldn’t help but focus on the fact that most of them had already been done in the Flash world. Sure, there were several things shown that were new, innovative, and promising. But as a guy who has been laser-focused on Flash for nine years, the “catch up” features stood out to me.
But here’s the thing – who cares? Does it matter that most of the new Silverlight features have already been done in Flash Player? Only if you’re religious about either technology (which I am). If you’re someone who is looking to deliver a great rich media experience you now have more than one option. Silverlight doesn’t really need to be that much better than Flash Player. Microsoft won’t win this war by out innovating the Flash Player team. They’ll win it through developer tools, integration with servers and services, and most of all through their exceptional ability to partner with their customers. I have heard so many customers tell me how great it is to partner with Microsoft.
Now, is it working for Microsoft? Well, I eagerly awaited the Silverlight success stories to be marched out on stage one after the other. They’ve been at it for a few years after all. And it’s no secret that Microsoft has dumped a lot of money into getting some high profile Silverlight projects out on the market (as has Adobe done with AIR, although I’m pretty confident that it had nowhere near the budget). When it came time to bring out the big customers who did I see? Netflix. Again.
“Isn’t their CEO on the Microsoft Board of Directors?” said a friend of mine sitting next to me during the keynote. Yes, Microsoft trotted out the Netflix CEO again to remind us, again, that Netflix uses Silverlight. Only this time he said something that I don’t recall hearing him say in previous MIX keynotes. He told the audience that Netflix chose Silverlight because it was the only solution for securely streaming video to the Mac. That was true at the time that the deployed it. Flash Player has since implemented similar features in conjunction with the Flash Media Server. So, ok, that’s a good justification. Last year MLB.com took the stage at MIX and said something similar. Of course, since then they have switched back to Flash.
Ok, Netflix is a success story. Who else? I’m sitting there thinking to myself, “it can’t be the Olympics again…” And yes, it was.
And that was it.
Now, these are both very compelling use cases for Silverlight. Great success stories. But why weren’t there any new ones? I spent my last six months at Adobe doing nothing but finding great success stories for AIR and Flash Player 10 as part of the Lighthouse team. As a result we showcased applications from DirecTV, Fox News, eBay, FedEx, Mini, Mercedes, Atlantic Records, AOL, Nasdaq, Nick.com, NY Times (ShifD), SlideRocket, and many more. Where are the Silverlight success stories? Microsoft needs to get on top of this – and quick. That was a big let down for me.
So, in short, I think Microsoft has made a lot of progress. I think their developer story is awesome. I think their platform integration story is unmatched. I think their efforts to attract designers to their platform are failing. None of the sessions I attended gave me any inclination that Microsoft had made much progress on this front. The Bill Buxton keynote presentation came off to me like, “Hey! Hey designers! Microsoft gets you! We employ cool designers just like you! Look! We’ve hired like 700 of them over the last few years! We get you!” without much in the way of readily available solutions to make designers any more productive in the RIA production workflow than they are today – with the exception of SketchFlow.
I also walked away with a strong impression that Microsoft is definitely in it to win it. I was skeptical considering the lack of Silverlight adoption and my assumption that the Expression tools were not doing so well either. I’m still not sure if either of these two points has changed much but the tone of MIX was loud and clear – they are dedicated to providing a better solution for building rich media solutions. In the end, I think the entire industry will benefit from the “battle” between Microsoft, Adobe, Google, and everyone else. If Microsoft out-does Adobe, Adobe will work harder and build better software. The opposite is also true. We all win.
Learn more
- Watch the Day 1 keynote here and Day 2 keynote here (Requires Silverlight 2).
- Watch the humorous opening video introducing Scott Guthrie (Note the jab at Flash when “The Gu’s” handler yells “No Flash!” at the paparrazi)
Great post Mike!
One thing I will note is your feeling of the “catch-up”/”seen that” was how I felt during some of the MAX 08 stuff. I spoke to one of my msft buddies there, and some random dude, and they felt the same having been at MIX in previous years.
I believe it will be this back-forth for years to come. What I mean is you’ll go to MAX 09 and see some of the stuff from MIX 09 then MIX 2010 will have some stuff from MAX 09.
The “battle” is definitely breeding innovation. Gotta love it!
Very cool post Mike.
Reminds me why I do this.
Competition = good.
http://mmod.ncaa.com/
NCAA March Madness on CBS Sports is pretty compelling.
“He told the audience that Netflix chose Silverlight because it was the only solution for securely streaming video to the Mac.”
That’s interesting because when Netflix streaming was launched, Mac was not supported. I think that has only been available for the last 4-5 months.
http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/11/hands-on-with-netflix-s-new-mac-streaming-player-a-good-start-nflx-
Note that a sandboxed version of Air would be a great idea. Its an option Adobe promise we will have on a future version to get rid of security warnings : http://blogs.adobe.com/simplicity/2008/05/airs_unrestricted_system_access_warning.html
If we can have sandboxed version of Air, one click install from badge as in Sileverlight with systray and system start support it could be a killer feature for Air.
I can’t speak for large users like Netflix, but my company needed a web app to edit a very large/complicated Xml file on a regular basis while enforcing a large number of business rules in the process. We previously had done this in XmlSpy – numerous errors on every new version, even though we were extremely careful. Silverlight was best the choice for us, and overall we have had a good experience with it. Now, I have to say that the user base was limited, and enforcing the download of the plugin in was not difficult. We may have had a different story for a large user base.
I think your analysis and feelings were spot on. I especially agreed with the “who cares” sentiment about the Silverlight features being replicants of Flash technology. Many Silverlight customers aren’t Flash converts but existing Microsoft stackers who now have an outlet on the web.
I also shared the dissapointment on the “brands/wins” trotted out. Your frustration with seeing Netflix and Olympics again was shared with many attendees.
Glad to see you still involved in the space and interested to see where you land. Best of luck and enjoy this CA weather :).
Adobe has ripped off as many or more feature and workflow ideas from Microsoft (.NET,WPF, SL) as Silverlight from Adobe. The attempt to portray Microsoft as just following Adobe’s “blueprint” is lame and innacurate though understandable from someone who “bleeds Flash red”
@Nat – first of all, your logic is flawed. You’re implying that it’s not okay to point out that building Silverlight quickly was easier for Microsoft because they could follow the “blueprint” or essentially learn from 12 years of Flash Player pluses and minuses – BECAUSE – Adobe has “ripped off” Microsoft in the past. That doesn’t make any sense, buddy.
Second of all, who cares if either company has “ripped off” features and workflows? That’s not the point. The point I made was that I’m impressed by how much Microsoft has accomplished (engineering-wise) with Silverlight in such a short time. Doing so WAS, in fact, aided by the fact that they could learn from what Adobe has done with Flash Player. When you compare the two pieces of software they are near identical in capabilities and target market.
Now, to your point, do I think Adobe “ripped off” ideas from .NET? Well, perhaps. Though I can’t think of any specific examples. I’m sure there might be some aspect of the Flex framework that was influenced by .NET. One of the drivers of Flex’s development was Mark Anders, who was Scott Guthrie’s partner at Microsoft in creating ASP.NET.
Do I think they “ripped off” any ideas from WPF? Well, perhaps. Though I can’t think of any specific examples. WPF is pretty new and isn’t really relevant to anything that Adobe is doing, except perhaps Adobe AIR in some regards. Having been a product manager for AIR I can say that I never really looked to WPF for inspiration when I was doing feature planning with the team.
Do I think they “ripped off” any features from Silverlight? No, I don’t. They may do so in the future, as I pointed out earlier in this post. Silverlight’s aggressive push towards high quality HD video and secure streaming definitely pushed Adobe to get h.264 and FMS 3 out the door.
Nat, you sound like a fanboy who has his fingers stuck in his ears while yelling “LAH-LAH-LAH-LAH-LAH!”
I follow you on twitted and found some of your comments a little biased. So to call someone a fan boy is a stretch coming from you.
I will say it’s quite simple for me it’s microsoft RIA vs adobe RIA. Like u eluded twice in your article it’s all about product integration for MS, something microsoft has a lot more than adobe.
The REAL story is MS releasing virtual earth sdk, silverlight mobile, silverlight on the cloud, integration with wcf, sharing code with wpf, iis media services to host hd silverlight media. Where are adobe’s equivelants? The do not exist! With silverlight and ms you have a one stop shop for RIA.
Fast forward to 2010…I write a silverlight app. I post it to ms azure and my customers include: windows 7 mobile, web, desktop, xbox arcade and azure cloud clients. Can adobe do the same? By then the game is over…u think mic support will be a game changer?
@Bart czernicki
I think anyone who takes a position that “my camp will crush your camp” without pointing out the pluses and minuses of both camps – and wants to voice that myopic viewpoint anywhere he can, is a fanboy.
Of course my comments are biased. I spent nine years developing products and helping to drive the strategy for Flash. And as you might have noticed, I pointed that out at the beginning of this post. The difference, however, is that I can point out what I think Microsoft is doing well and what I disagree with. I do the same on twitter.
Now, on your other points, I agree that MS has an advantage when it comes to the full platform story. The integration between tools, clients, services, etc is fantastic. Now, some of this is still *story* and not reality. But as I said in the post, I think Microsoft is in it to win it and I have no doubt that much of their story will come to reality within the next few years.
Saying that Adobe has no equivalents is just plain wrong. You are echoing in the fanboy chamber by not looking at what the other camp has to offer. They may not have parity with each component of the Microsoft platform but they have several competitive strengths. The design community is one of them. Flash mobile is another. There are over 100M phones running Flash Lite. How many are running “Silverlight Mobile”?
Open your mind up a bit and try to look at the big picture. Each side has it’s strengths and weaknesses and it is productive to point out what those are so the rest of us can make better decisions on RIA technologies.
Mike,
Great read, I of course object to a few points but it’s your say and i’ll not quip over scraps as at the end of the day your point is “whom cares” lets just get RIA happening is the reality of it all.
Just to clarify my @ryanstewart tweet it was to highlight that if you want to detract someone away from “they aren’t competiting” you do so by not stating outloud that you think people are think Silverlight & AIR are competiting for one. Secondly, to also use HTML as a feature or bust as to why you’re not competiting was somewhat silly, given Adobe AIR’s implementation of WebKit hasn’t really yielded any major results (given most AIR apps still revert to a persons browser). As that’s what we call “breaking into jail”.
I did post a comment on his blog, but he’s not published it to also clarify this.
At anyrate, I think you’re still grappling with identity on old habits vs developing new in terms of a bit of pro-Adobe influence is still there, but it’s forgiveable in this post none the less.
I think you summarised it well with this quote:
“…Open your mind up a bit and try to look at the big picture. Each side has it’s strengths and weaknesses and it is productive to point out what those are so the rest of us can make better decisions on RIA technologies…”
Agreed.
-
Scott Barnes
Rich Platforms Product Manager
Microsoft.
@Mike,
Mike I will simply say do me a favor and go back and search in 2002 about .NET vs Java comparisons. Java had 100 more features/libraries and tens of thousands of developers. Many said the same things…comparing features. Microsoft is “copying” Java. Microsoft will not succeed. Sound similar yet?
Fast forward to 2009…EVERY SINGLE API at Microsoft is written in .NET or uses it: Windows Azure, Live Services, Virtual Map SDK, IIS, SQL Server, Analysis Services, Office, Silverlight, ASP.NET, WCF, WPF, WF, Win Forms, Biztalk, SharePoint, Performance Point, Windows Mobile, Windows OS Vista, Windows 2008, PowerShell Scripting, SSIS, Microsoft Expression, Visual Studio, Reporting Services, Microsoft Surface etc
“I agree that MS has an advantage when it comes to the full platform story.”
advantage? Having mic/printing support is an “advantage” in Flash. Having the ridiculous platform that Microsoft can integrate with is “clear strategic superiority”.
“Flash mobile is another. There are over 100M phones running Flash Lite. How many are running “Silverlight Mobile”?”
That will change REAL quick. Does Adobe have a mobile OS coming out? Apple is essentially blocking them out of their own market and they can’t do anything about it. It is a real problem when a company has to rely on other partnerships to grow. That is a major problem when your competitor has JUST BEGUN to start throwing Silverlight around into everything…we are just seeing it.
The Silverlight battle cry should be “Remember 2002″. They will do it again :)
@mdowney
“Fast forward to 2010…I write a silverlight app. I post it to ms azure and my customers include: windows 7 mobile, web, desktop, xbox arcade and azure cloud clients. Can adobe do the same?”
Can Microsoft do the same on non-Microsoft platforms? (and I’m not just talking about OSX)
one aspect of that (above) that concerns me is what some people call “platform lock-in” that I call “choice”.
forcing a technology to work on more than one platform (que Flash for Linux) is preparing for what hasn’t been invented yet (not what Microsoft hasn’t invented yet – there’s a difference)
What happens if, say, a game-changing product is released that leverages stripped-down Linux+KDE? can I bank on Moonlight to help me take advantage of it for the UI? what about everything else?
@Barry,
Can we please stop with the Linux “game-changing” product. It has a LOOONG way to go. Firefox is showing astronomical growth over the last 3 years and its at 20% of the market. Even if Linux matches this, its still going to be a long time before we see it have anything close to 10%.
BTW you would be really surprised with what MS is playing with. We had one of the top coders at MS give training a few years ago and he said they got SQL Server to work on Linux. Then someone asked him about that during a Q&A while his boss was there…lets just say that was an uncomfortable moment. It just shows you MS is testing out their products (at least secretively/internally) with Linux.
I think the bigger take away from Netflix (and it was their VP of Web Engineering – Kevin Mcentee – not the CEO) is that 2 years ago they made a bet on the Microsoft platform and today they have the ability to deliver to a number of client devices primarily via Silverlight which has allowed them to roll an adaptive streaming solution that provides a great experience.
The Olympics wasn’t a repeat of last year when the Beijing event was announced – this was confirming that not only was last year a resounding success for NBC they’re committing to doing it again for 2010
This isn’t about who is copying who and who has the best feature (after all, the best smooth zooming experience I’ve seen since last years http://memorabilia.hardrock.com is this years http://playboyarchive.com….) but it’s about recognising that Flash isn’t the only game in town and that MS are serious about driving richer experiences for end users.
This is actually great news for designers, developers and end users. It means Adobe won’t let Flash languish while HTML5 / Canvas / SVG / JavaFX / Gears etc start to compete, and in turn Microsoft will need to also continue the amazing pace that has already driven Silverlight from nowhere 3 years ago to being a credible solution today.
Flash and Silverlight are not going away, but hopefully what we’ll start to see going forward is some amazing experiences as both platforms challenge each other and the alternatives…
Hi Mike
For me it’s a cut and dry issue. How many Flash/Flex developers are there in the world with years of experience developing web based multimedia compared to the same using Silverlight (or anything else for that matter)?
Microsoft can include all the cool features they like but unless real developers with great ideas start developing with Silverlight over Flash then it’s a dead horse.
Flash is the standard for delivering interactive multimedia online and has been since Macromedia acquired it from FutureSplash.
I personally know quite a few good flash developers and quite a few quite crap ones too. I have never met a Silverlight developer … Only read about them and even then they sound like a whole different tradesman.
@Bart Czernicki
don’t get too hung up on Linux, it was just a hyperthetical.
the Open Screen project (or at least the idea behind it) is closer to what I was talking about:
http://www.openscreenproject.org/
http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/dale-rankines-forum-nokia-blog/2009/02/19/nokia-and-adobe-create-10m-open-screen-development-fund
@offbeatmammal
I agree with your points. I think your conclusion that this competition serves to benefit the entire industry and that Microsoft is committed to this strategy is consistent with mine.
I can see that Netflix continuing to use Silverlight is a good thing and hearing NBC say that they will use Silverlight for the 2010 Olympics is also good news – but that was it. No new customers. Is Microsoft’s success story for Silverlight, three years in: “Two of the big customers who deployed it say they’re going to keep using it”? Really?
I was disappointed that I didn’t hear of any new success stories.
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Nice post!I like it!
Very cool post Mike.
Reminds me why I do this