The scare this year has been that you, as a developer, would have to choose a platform and focus on it. Noone minds a bit of focus, but the fact that seemingly artificial barriers to re-use of code and effort were being introduced; the mobile platforms were making it necessary to choose a side, because learning all the platforms was a big reach. Blackberry, Android, iOS, Flash Platform, each with its own SDKs, IDEs, frameworks, and of course, time destroying tricks and gothas. But things are looking a little brighter:
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Archives for category: silverlight
Making the web more interesting and accessible and engaging is by no means a zero-sum game where you have to take a bite out of someone else’s business to make an impression. Some competition never hurts, as long as it is done in such a way that it provides more options to developers and end users, and not more barriers and walled gardens.
Specifically, the Silverlight versus Flash debate that now manifests mainly in web video streaming. Simply put: as a company with massive R&D you should not have to ‘win back market share’ in the most dynamic and creative and vibrant market space ever to exist.
For example, Silverlight could beat Flash at hardware 3D, or better random-access streaming (without a dedicated media server), or a better install and update experience, or improved audio interface and control, or better core libraries (imagine Natal image processing built into webcam functions), or more seamless desktop integration (drag and drop to make a desktop app?). Rather than simply have a slightly different video codec or IDE, both of which have little impact on user experience
There are a lot of shortcomings and strengths that can be played off, without having the ‘advantage’ of being the same as your competitor , except for the right-click menu items. Microsoft has shown willingness to innovate with Natal and Surface and Photosynth. An example of skirting close to me-too, however, is somewhat apparent in the video service for Vancouver 2010… Read the rest of this entry »
