WTF? How do you figure? Because MS is opening another front it means their primary one is "at risk". LOL. I doubt it son.

On the grand scale of things, Silverlight is a relatively small project for Microsoft and is in no way an indication the Windows is "at risk".

Laughable.

I hope for Adobe's sake you are wrong. Anyone that doesn't take Microsoft seriously is a fool. Just ask Netscape, Sony, Sun Microsystems, IBM, and a lot other, once dominate, platform vendors. Microsoft isn't invincible, but they should never be underestimated.

Richard

Perhaps it seems like a bit of a reach but consider this. Around 17% or more of all new laptops sold are Apple Macs - that's a statistic from last year so it may be higher now. Linux is very slowly gaining ground (perhaps under 1%) mind share on the desktop. Vista is less of a success than Microsoft would like.

Back in the early 1980's people thought it was laughable that IBM would loose its platform domination to Microsoft. The point is Microsoft needs another front in their product line to help offset a possible loss of dominance in the desktop. Whether you agree or not Silverlight 3 would be one arrow in a quiver of tactics to address that issue.

Adobe may be scared of Microsoft but Microsoft is equally concerned about Adobe AIR, just as they were rightfully concerned about Java. It's a battle for the next desktop.

Richard

Next thing you'll know MS will be making huge bloated "Mega-Widgets" like email clients that interface with Exchange Server or even a suite of office tools like a word processor and spreadsheet app

/sarcasm

The important thing to keep in mind is the idea of "cross-platform" applications. Until Silverlight Microsoft and .NET stayed on the Windows platform (exception being applications like MS Word for Mac OS X). They have never attempted to create a cross operating system runtime before Silverlight. Silverlight 3 would bring that to the desktop. Imagine writing an application in .NET and deploying to Mac OS X. That's a big deal and a big departure for Microsoft.

Richard

Richard

This is good news. Adobe will have to continue to accelerate their pace of innovation in AIR, just like Microsoft's release of Silverlight 1.0 forced adobe into the hi-def flash streaming game a bit quicker than we might have seen.

In the end, developers and system integrators will win. Those companies who specialize in delivering both solutions will win the most, because I see Adobe and Microsoft's target markets as being a bit different.

I for one, having written a book about AIR, etc., am stiill waiting for a PAYING customer to implement a project with it. Most businesses see AIR as a nice toy, and a nice, "yeah, that's cute." type of technology, but lacking critical features to do much serious integration work with it. (I deal mostly with financial companies). The same clients do see benefit in Flex (RIA platforms) for delivering a better experience to their customers for certain applications, though. It seems AIR is the perfect platform for creating a social networking application, but little more. Hopefully, Microsoft's push into this space will force Adobe to step up and give us some of the required features, like threading and native os access.

Personally, if I'm creating cross-platform applications, I don't really care which platform I use to develop them in, as long as I don't have to deal with C++ in QT, or that terrible wxWindows stuff anymore. And don't even get me started on Java Swing. Ick.

Interesting comments from an AIR author and developer. Thank you!

You say that you have not had any commercial work in AIR and that it appears to be only appropriate for social networking applications. Have other people found this to be true? Is anyone getting paid to develop AIR applications other than Adobe employees? I would have thought the market would be flourishing.

Richard

However, it's a small, niche field. Just go search dice com for "Adobe AIR" and you'll see how small the job market is. And of most of the results you'll see, a lot of the jobs are primarily for web/flex development with a dash of AIR.

"Adobe AIR" brings back 59 results.
"Adobe Flex" birngs back 259
"AIR" -- bad keyword to search for, unless you're looking to work in the airlines.
"Flex" 1084 (didn't really look to see if t hey were valid)
Silverlight -- 211

So don't read into my comment that I'm saying AIR is useless or anything. Just trying to point out that it's a very small niche market now (will grow, hopefully).

And, of course, all very unscientific results.

My apologies if I don't automatically Obey Alien Orders.... ;-)

Anytime Microsoft says they'll do something, we at Adobe have to take it seriously. Internally, we need to act as if they will either deliver, or over-deliver. We have to plan against the announcement.

But out in the rest of the world, you have to look at what is actually delivered. Microsoft made another off-hand comment at a conference. People creating projects don't know if or when Microsoft will deliver, and none of us can yet know what the actual user experience will be.

It's hard to even find a direct quote of what Guthrie actually said.

AIR is a unique desktop client. It accepts today's standard web technologies -- JavaScript and SWF -- and brings them to the desktop.

AIR is already out there, bringing today's web skills to different desktops. It's a known quantity... can be used today... Ajax or Flash, both can take advantage of it.

That's a little bit different from a mention of some planned future announcement.

jd/adobe

I agree that Microsoft is known for its vaporware and you have to take any announcement with a grain (if not a huge block) of salt.

That said, It's good that Adobe takes it seriously because I suspect this is something Microsoft will actually deliver.

Richard

I'm not convinced. It takes more than brute programming skills to be an RIA developer: you also have to have an eye for UI design and development. And judging by MS's design tools, and the general degree of design acumen present in most .Net developers I have come across, there is a steep learning curve in store for these "hordes of developers" who are going to put all of us lowly Flex developers out of work.

So if the "hordes from MS land" does not convince of a credible competitive threat, what does MS have, right now and in the near future? A browser runtime with penetration numbers so low they are not even published? A desktop solution tied to Windows... and a future solution, rumoured at, maybe, sometime in the future.

Yes, Adobe needs to take MS seriously as a competitor, if for no other reason than their tendency to outspend (and outhype) their competition into oblivion, regardless whether their solution is better.

But serious competition? Worrisome to Adobe? Gimme a break.

While I (disclaimer: have worked with Flash/Flex for a couple of years) think that the competition between Flex and Silverlight is certainly a good thing for us developers, I am also wondering when this tsunami of Silverlight RIA-developing .NET developers is reaching the shores of the RIA land.
Silverlight has been out since April 2007 (source: Wikipedia) and I hardly come across any Silverlight apps on the web. I usually only hear about Silverlight apps when Microsoft has spent some time to make it happen (like at the Olympic games).

Don't get me wrong: I don't want to trigger another heated Flex-Silverlight battle here. I'm just a bit amused about the policy of announcing big things without (possibly) an actual impact to be seen. I may be totally wrong when in two years time the whole developers' world is actually using Silverlight 3 but then I won't have a problem to acknowledge this.

@Joeflash - I couldn't agree more with what you're saying. Silverlight's been out for a year and a half and already Microsoft are touting version 3. Seems like they're just rapidly advancing the release number... maybe they'll slow down when they get up around 10 ;-)

@warwick - there's no doubt about it that Air apps on my desktop run significantly slower than normal applications and this is something that Adobe do need to address.

Although I think Adobe could be doing a better job of selling the AJAX community on AIR, since that runtime is also Webkit-enabled and runs AJAX apps like nobody's business.

1. Silverlight is actually an important part of Microsoft's cloud computing strategy. I think it is because MS wants to strengthen its enterprise level product line as it is of a very profitable market and much less piracy.

2. Office 14 Web Edition is being developed with AJAX and Silverlight and its early test version had been showcased on PDC2008. Here is the link to the video: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/PDCNews/First-Look-Office-14-for-Web/. And other MS products will also have Silverlight front ends or parts soon, eg. Sharepoint.

3. Microsoft is developing a business application framework for Silverlight that will make it even more productive in developing business applications.

4. There are already quite many .NET developers developing Silverlight applications for their clients. At this stage, most of those applications are business applications, so the overall Silvelight adoption on Internet browsers really doesn't matter. You can check some Silverlight forums and blogs, you will see how active those developers are.

I am one of those developers and found Silverlight is the only option that I can take to accomplish my work effectively and productively. The projects I am doing include multiple layers and I can just work out the solutions from the database backend straight to the Silverlight client side using C# and Visual Studio in a short time frame, with good code quality. Someone would blame me as a M$ no brainer. But what else can I do if I can't get the solutions delivered more and more quickly with more and more powerful features when there is a fierce competition going on in the market?

Considering my clients don't care what tech they are using, they just want it to be useful for making money more and more easily and quickly, I am actually making a typical example myself that the .NET developers can really push up the Silverlight adoption.

As for Silverlight vs Flex/Flash, I've already got some experience deep into Silverlight and I also tried some Flex things before. My feeling is that they are pretty different and they normally meet different needs. I personally don't see Flash/Flex as a competitor to Silverlight and think both will coexist in the market in the future.

Sometimes I really don't understand why Flex/Flash developers and designers are so angry about Silverlight. For once I talked to a Flash designer and I said, hey, don't blame Silverlight so much because it won't take your job away.

JavaFX might be a competitor but it hasn't reach any official release yet. Besides I have to say I don't like JavaFX Script and I don't know why couldn't they use plain XML, eg. MXML, XAML, to build UI descriptions.

So can't we all exist?

But for me the beauty of Silverlight is that your skill is readily transferable to WPF. If you already have a decent experience with XAML and C#, you can already develope for the web or desktop.

1 skill for the web and for the desktop.

Yes, I'm working on a dashboard for a large defense contractor. We're leveraging Flex/Air to display production information. Obviously, its internal and I can show/say what I'm 'showing', but Flex/Air is a big part of it. We're hoping to show how this can create a 'user defined' application by taking advantage of a dashboard with a 'dashboard' store of modules. This will allow the user to configure the app to only include the 'modules' they need to do their job. Intra module communication based on a Interface Based Architecture (IBA) allows use to do 'dynamic' loading and messaging.

So far, its been well received.

BTW, I am by trade a Pascal/Fortran/Cobal/C/C++/Java/VB/COM/DCOM/ASP/ASP.NET/C#/VB.NET ... well, you get the point. Technology changes. We change with it. Yes, I've looked into Silverlight, used 1.0, nice but not ready, working with 2.0 -- definitely better, waiting on 3.0 -- that is where I think it will get very interesting.

Yes, Catalyst and Gumbo are VERY exciting -- I choose to use the tool that 'best' fits what the client needs today -- not 'wait' for the next great thing. As we've seen, it all changes and we adapt. What I write today will VERY likey be modifed/rewritten in a 'new and better' language later -- but the Architecture will likely remain.

Bottom line: I LIKE the competition between MS and Adobe. Ignore the 'religious' wars and judge for yourself by building in both technologies. Invest your time and try both -- I find I make better decisions when I use tools and find what does and doesn't work.

BTW, Adobe is smart in 'open sourcing'. You get more honest feedback as well as contributions from excellent developers/architects (those who have time ;o). Not saying MS does not sponsor open source (.NET mono for instance), but with Silverlight, I think they would benefit from the same type of 'community spirit' Flex/Air is getting...

Yes, I'm older than dirt ;o)...
-Don

Silverlight is the RIA enterprise. If you cannot see, how Microsoft can integrate this into Silverlight 2 Mobile (announced), Silverlight on SharePoint (already being done), Silverlight on Office Web (already announced)....these are JUST the things that were announced.

Seriously...where is Adobe going to port Flash/Flex next? They have it very nicely integrated with the PhotoShop/Illustrator Suite. What next? What product vertical or horizontal is next? Unless Adobe makes some aquisition or is aquired themselves (by Apple)...they have no way to "foce" the technology onto anyone except external growth.

Silverlight can be put on Reporting Services, Analysis Services, Windows Azuer/Cloud computing, semantic Web 3.0 search. None of these concepts EXIST in the Adobe realm.

The back-end infrastructure for databasing and any kind of connectivity and caching with off-line applications will just work no matter what hardware you are using or where you are at #Europe, Asia, Oceania etc.# so anyone can now have an application anywhere #competitive advantage for small time devs who can't afford their own server farm). That's all thanks to the Azure System Bus..

Say you don't want to build your own infrastructure you can now just farm it out to someone else somewhere else and not worrk about it..

Offline SL3 Web applications with this in-place could totally revolutionize the marketplace connected with the Azure infrastructure..

I don't think Microsoft is worried that they are gonna loose desktop applications here.. They seem to have their own strategy for connected FIT applications that goes way beyond Adobe. SL3 may just be the front end..

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/PDCNews/First-Look-Office-14-for-Web/

Your understanding of WPF/ Silverlight is obviously limited and your contention that it matters to anyone (besides a very specialized group of inidividuals who are building drawing application) that there is no drawing support is ridiculous and completely myopic.

Silverlight, and JavaFx for that matter are going to CRUSH flash/flex into oblivion so join the bandwagon now while you can or get used to being a bitter hater.

The reasons for this go far beyond one line item in thousands. There's the IDE (visula studio is the best IDE on the planet hands down# there's SDLC, there's incremental evolution #applications built using asp.net will undoubtedly slowly integrate Silverlight since the developers who worked on the actual site have virtually no learning curve), theres the tools and tool support, legacy win32 app migration to RIA, etc etc. I could go on and on but why bother. Most flex/flash guys would just respond "yeah, but flash has oneneterframe and silverlight does not"

So here (http://www.nike.com) is the only example I could find of an enterprise application using (some) flash/flex. Of course this app is backed entirely by java, so it is actually more like a java site that just uses flash/flex as its view (rather than HTML). The plainest evidence of this is the fact that every singe click does a postback. Why is this important, because these guys are probably going to be moving to (you guessed it) JavaFX.

In any case, my core question is why there is no "DrawingVisual" object in Silverlight with a low level DrawXXX API on it. It would greatly increase the consistency with WPF, and could provide the necessary performance needed for more complex graphical applications. The overhead of instantiating/configuring/adding a zillion Shape-based objects degrades quite a bit as the # of objects goes into the thousands, which is not uncommon.

No hater/fanboy here - just want to see Silverlight "fixed" so it can be used in a new class of applications!

Looks kind of like buzzword. Have you seen any of the Aviary apps? Their in browser flash based vector editor is more advanced than expression design.

The complete lack of any research you did before making your bold claims is a pretty good indication of how nonsensical they are.

Poor Adobe!

From.
"Adobe AIR" brings back 59 results.
"Adobe Flex" birngs back 259
"AIR" -- bad keyword to search for, unless you're looking to work in the airlines.
"Flex" 1084 (didn't really look to see if t hey were valid)
Silverlight -- 211

MS will bring its legions of ASP.NET devs into the field.

WPF/Silverlight are great products . They are going to be hard to beat 3 major versions of silverlight in 18 months . 3.0 has the bitmap caching with which flash beats it in some bench marks and more improvements
Now .NET RIA etc..

http://dotnetdreamer.com/2009/04/24/silverlight-3-out-of-the-browser-applications/

But here's the thing: the second that IT departments start committing to rich-client internet apps as a proven technology in the enterprise, there will be a mass movement toward Silverlight. With Silverlight available and working, .Net developers aren't going to move to Flash in anything but tiny numbers.

The practical effect of this is that (unsurprisingly) Silverlight will never be a threat to Flex or AIR in cool, public-oriented applications. If you're a Flash developer with several years experience, are you really dying to move to Silverlight? Didn't think so.

However, it's equally unlikely that anything based on the Flash platform will start stealing much mindshare from .Net inside the firewall. Inside the firewall, we all know it's overwhelmingly Java and .Net, and Microsoft's Silverlight moves here are enough to make sure that .Net shops and groups don't feel like they're behind the curve.

So to the extent that Silverlight gains share, it will be from developers who switch from Asp.Net or traditional desktop apps. And to the extent that Flex or AIR gain share, I imagine the bulk of the gains will be from PHP and such.

I would love to see wider adaptation of Silverlight in more public facing though and I hope Microsoft will package Silverlight with Operating system just as they did with Xp and Flash. Then we can bid for public facing sites :)