I think the thrust of the statement is correct. MS brings a whole lot of development chops to the table. Adobe not so much. Silverlight has a CLR/DLR and real development languages like C#. Flash only has ActionScript which doesn't compare favorably to C#.

Seeing some of the demos of features in Silverlight3 and how MS is focusing so much on the general corporate developer, I'm concerned for Flex developers. It seems to me, unless something changes - Silverlight is going to be way ahead of Flash/Flex is in the near future...

Very interesting information. I want to look in silverlight animation possibility. But Flash's benefit is based on consistent User interface for animation like after effect. If Microsoft can learn adobe's UI for animation tool, this will be very useful for target audiences.

I forgot to mention this things. To penetrate web animation, User will stick around flash. It is not about language system. It is about application adoption rate on web. you can see here the RIA tech population.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=flash+player,javascript,ajax,silverlight,javafx&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

And here's flash penetration on web.

http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/

I vote FUD.

This is just a typical "my technology is better than your technology and we'll take over your market share" statement that we see all the time. Sometimes it becomes true but most often it does not.

And this statement, "If you've ever tried to open up somebody else's Flash project that is a legacy thing and work on it, try to find where the code is hidden and all that stuff. I've had to do that many times and it's a nightmare.", that's just a silly thing to say because that isn't the fault of Flash as a platform. Badly written code is the fault of the programmer who coded it, not the platform in use. Plus I would have to say he seems to be referring to a Flash project coded in Actionscript 1. Boy, that's a fair comparison. We're currently on Flash version 10, let's wait a few years and compare coding practices between Siliverlight 2 and Silverlight 10 to see what we get.

There were similar statements on InsideRIA recently where someone from the AJAX world was claiming their technology would eventually take over Flex's market share. Whatever. If it does, good for you. But instead of bragging about something that hasn't happened yet, how about actually making it happen?

As I said in my response to that AJAX post, all technologies have their place. Sure Microsoft has a history of "business solutions" and Adobe does not. Microsoft can make Silverlight into the best web business solution all it wants to. I use Flash for "creative solutions" and if Microsoft just wants to push Silverlight as a platform for business uses then I have no reason to ever try it out. I am a designer/artist and I have no desire to learn C# for something to be placed on a web site. Although I do find it interesting and nice to know that if I ever wanted to take the plunge, access to the technology is pretty much free.

But I wish people would get used to the idea that Flash and Flex are not the same thing. The two have very different purposes. From what I've seen you cannot compare Silverlight and Flash, which is kind of like comparing Photoshop and Illustrator. You compare Silverlight and Flex. I work in Flash, not Flex. If Silverlight competes with Flex then I can care less about Silverlight.

I think Silverlight has an excellent chance to compete with Flex for its market share in it's intended space. But I find it hard to believe that Silverlight will effectively compete with Flash for what it is used for. Flash never should have come up in the discussion.

Plus the guy does work for Microsoft. What's he going to do, say something like "Yeah, the Flash technology from my previous employer is the greatest thing since sliced bread and I'm wasting my time even working here on this silly project."? Of course he's going to push his own technology.

How about we let the market decide which is the better technology and quit wasting our time with marketing chatter from people who should know better. Impress me with what your platform does better as opposed to trying to convince me what's wrong with what I'm using now.

Well, I think the fact that he is so dismissive of Flash (he repeats three times that it is only good for cartoons) reduce the credibility of his article.

Am I the only one to think that Deep Dive is nothing new?

List me RIAs built in Silverlight, I can list a ton for Flash/Flex.

When I'll see a Silverlight website that wins a FWA, I'll start getting interested. Until then keep working on it; it might have a future.

Brad Becker's comments are anti-creative. To say Flash isn't good for anything besides "cartoons" is ridiculous, but its also a slight to creativity in general and the attitude says push the limit with any platform. If you can't see doing anything more with the Flash platform than to make a cartoon, then your problem is not Flash, its your imagination gene.

I also take issue with the comment that AS is less than C#. Yes, you can do more with C#, but its also a language that is intended for desktop as well as web applications, which also means its much bigger and harder to quickly learn. As far as the fundamentals go, I argue that AS3 competes well with any language in terms of OOP features and capabilities, and for web applications you would never find it wanting, regardless of your background.

All the platforms have different approaches and different advantages (that usually have more to do with making certain aspects of development quicker or easier and have less to do with overall capabilities). I'm sure Silverlight is great, but to suggest that other platforms have arbitrary limitations just make you appear to have either know knowledge of that platform (which is obviously not the case for Brecker) or have a very limited imagination. Or you are just talking useless smack to try to promote your own product.

Brad Becker must have some level of latent animosity toward his former employer. As an RIA developer who uses Flash, I find his comments demeaning, out of touch, and frankly, unnecessary.

"It's not really so much about converting people who are perfectly happy doing Flash. If you're really happy doing Flash or if you're building cartoons for the Web or whatever, by all means keep doing what's working for you."

I respect the fact that being an integral part of the Silverlight framework means having passion for your product, but to sideline Flash development into the realm of cartooning and not as a legitimate platform is quite a petty thing to do.

It's definitely marketing FUD of trying to sell Silverlight over Flash and Flex using old misconceptions of Flash. If Brad Becker really wanted to try and prove that Silverlight is better than Flash when it comes to web applications, he would make a comparison to a modern Flex project and point out specific advantages that Silverlight brings. A proper unbiased comparison would show advantages and disadvantages, but I can understand someone from Microsoft only pushing the strengths of their technology and ignoring any weaknesses. However, we do not even get that type of biased comparison, but instead his example is of a legacy Flash application, which from his description sounds like an old Flash 5 project, which obviously does not compare to Silverlight 2. On the flip side a Silverlight version 1 project, using JavaScript would be hard to program a complex application compared to a Flex 3 project with Flash 9.

As far as marketing Silverlight, while it's unfair and dishonest, it's actually a good from a business approach for Microsoft, as a lot of .Net developers are unfamiliar with Flash and Flex and have a lot of misconceptions. It's an easier and quicker sell that way for Microsoft rather than any proper comparison. Microsoft often shows off projects that could have easily have been done in Flash and .Net developers are impressed as they are more familiar with what can be done with HTML and AJAX.

Also on the flip side of things, few Flash and Flex developers make fair comparisons with Silverlight, as they generally have a misconception of the technology. The ecosystem of both technologies are really quite huge and it takes an investment in time to learn and get experience with either technology. So it's very rare to find developers with good understanding of both technologies and who are then capable of writing about it online. So the majority of Flash/Flex versus Silverlight articles I've seen are very biased and one sided as it all has to do with that developers' background.

Is this a bad dream? I thought the community has evolved significantly since I last read this type of argument a few years ago. That anyone can still be thrown off by someone saying Flash is for cartoons, is frightening.

Look, and I mean this very sincerely, I don't see the point. Some of us are earning a good living using what has already become the de facto RIA tools. Flash owes its existence to geeky pioneers who grew tired of crappy Java applet animation, and came up with a better tool. And after years it has matured so much, that I proudly promote it as a solid and robust presentation tier to clients - clients, who by the way, have also evolved, and are not thrown off by biased statements like the cartoon one.

I mean, honestly, I could teach .NET developers a lesson when it comes to development, design patterns, and employing a decent architecture in their style. This is true. Some .NET can be quite thick. I've dealt with them, and it ain't always pretty. I look at my Flex applications, the beautiful and almost touching balance, the separation of model, controller and view, an inspiring implementation of PureMVC.

And believe me, if the Silverlight gang comes up with anything reaching the profound possibilities that Flex, Flash, PureMVC, Prana bring me - then, be sure, I'll copy them, and the Flex crowd will surely retaliate with gusto. Sometimes, reading posts about Flex, I feel - aarghh - stop whining about, you know, ooh, the Sound API has changed... the world will surely end... backwards compatibility is failing us!! Just get over it, you know. So, competition. Good. It's our friend. Let's all be friends. Except the Silverlight guys - for now.

I am an ex Java dev who has done a ton of AJAX and now I am doing Flex. We picked flex because it is mature, works, and has market penetration. We are building an enterprise app. Basically a GUI that could very well be a desktop at that we are deploying the the browser.

I am a little scared that I am now a flash developer. What the hell? I always used to think of Flash as a toy, and this perspective is out there.

But AS3 + Flex is no toy whatsoever. It is as good of a GUI development framework as I can think of. I don't need anything else. And the integration with a Java back end via BlazeDS is awesome.

Flex 4 is going to add a lot of designer - developer workflow features and MS is way behind there.

But I hope, now that my skill set is in Flex, that Adobe pays attention to the more "hardcore CS" under the hood type stuff. This is the direction MS will be attacking from, and it is essential that Adobe defends this Flank or they will loose out for enterprise develpment. So far, I think they have done a good job, but they have to stay on it with MS approaching.

With RIAs becoming more popular, this means development managers will be willing to donate precious developer resources to the front end. The candidates are AJAX, Flex, and Silverlight. If you have a team of .NET developers then it will be hard to argue Flex. But if you have a team of Java developers then I think Flex competes favorably now, due to a more mature component model and more market penetration.

In the end, the main pools of develppment talent out there, for enterprise apps, are probably Java and .NET developers. Adobes strategy should be to continue to court the Java developers and focus on the performance of the platform so that it can compete with Silverlight and JavaFX (if that ever goes anywhere) on the technical side. They already have an advantage on the artistic side, so they should keep that but the other flank is what is vulnerable.

I disagree with the statement with regards to Silverlight focused on applications. Silverlight 1 was basically a video player and animations. Silverlight 2 is when actual .NET programming started to happen.

What a complete joke?? Micirosoft silverlight is no way near flex in the RIA arena. I have personally used the ide and its a truck load of crap. I also see a lot of basic controls not being provided off hand . Who will want to pay for a datagrid control ? And the author for sure has never tried anything on flex.

Again. A complete joke !