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January 03, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft to strong arm Silverlight adoption
Miffed perhaps by the dearth of Web sites buying into its Silverlight proposition, Microsoft has its sights on a Web site redesign centered around showing the world that not only is it capable of eating its own dog food but that it can force you, www.microsoft.com visitor, into eating it, too.
According to a post on The NeoSmart Files blog, Microsoft is immersed in a beta trial of a new Microsoft Web site built around Silverlight, Redmond's last-year-launched salvo vs. Adobe's near-ubiquitous Flash. Soon, anyone looking to download, say, Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool to rid their system of infectious software they don't want will just have to download some noninfectious software they might not want (read: Silverlight) to get to it.
No HTML muss. No HTML fuss.
Although the thought of Microsoft requiring visitors to wear a Silverlight suit to enter its cyberhouse does bring to mind certain William Trevor stories in which awaiting never-to-arrive dinner guests provides the kind of quiet melancholy that can linger for days, the forced-Silverlight-uptake gambit is likely to boost Microsoft's Silverlight adoption rate, if only because the company's Web site serves an estimated 60 million unique visitors per month, according to Compete Search Analytics (nod to NeoSmart on the stat tip).
That's a lot of systems to infect, er, penetrate.
For a look at some screenshots, check out the NeoSmart gallery. Or, dare the beta yourself.
In the meantime, let's just hope that Microsoft remains sensible about access to the product support area of its site. After all, requiring users to download an "under-adopted" Microsoft product in order to figure out why an, um, "over-adopted" Microsoft product isn't working would be the kind of torture Microsoft should be above.
Or maybe not.
In fact, perhaps this is part of Microsoft's greater "frustration-detecting help system" plans.
Of course, as far as technologies go, Silverlight isn't a dog, as Martin Heller finds out in his comprehensive Test Center Review "Microsoft Silverlight rivals Flash, AJAX."
Additional resources
Review: Microsoft Silverlight rivals Flash, AJAX
Strategic Developer Silverlight archives
Posted by Jason Snyder on January 3, 2008 03:01 PM
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- COMMENTS
I have downloaded Silverlight on Vista x64 and I notice it loads videos faster than Flash does which is very encouraging. The chore of downloading is no different from downloading the Adobe Flash Player which I assume millions do everyday, not to mention uninstalling and reinstalling it. Microsoft could just as well push it through Windows Update or future technologies such as IE 8.
The competition is good for consumer, we will see more innovation coming out of Microsoft and Adobe not to mention Mozilla who is also working on a similar project for Firefox.
Posted by: Andre Da Costa at January 6, 2008 06:53 AMi tried to view a Leopard overview on the apple site and they're strongarming people into downloading the quicktime plug-in. amazing. when microsoft does it, it's criminal yet it happens everywhere... i recently heard of a company which strongarms consumers into converting all of their music into a proprietary format in order to play the files on their devices!!! how horrific!!!
Posted by: freddyb at January 7, 2008 03:14 PMWell, the biggest reason I use IE anymore at all is that the MS website makes it difficult to download patches, etc. with FireFox.
Posted by: Ron at January 8, 2008 11:18 AMIf you've seen Silverlight in all it's development glory you will realise. What MS have here is the future.
They've taking Flash, looked at the fester stew that is Actionscipt and said to themselves "Well that's rubbish. Lets build that with a language people actually undestand and can model".
And Silverlight has full support on Firefox. So that's good. Even the javascripting interface to it is the same in Firefox as it is in IE. Say what you will, Microsoft are learning.
Silverlight seems like another killer application from MS. It's been so long, I'd say they were due, no?
Posted by: Oddball at January 9, 2008 04:08 AMEr, no. This reminds me of all those Zune commercials I've been seeing lately. Microsoft doesn't want a language they can't control, like say VBscript. So the rubbish comment doesn't have a lot of merit.
Flash has a huge adoption, and a major amount of creative developers. That has kept Apple alive, and it will keep Flash alive. Microsoft will never get them. The hatred is real and deep, so Silverlight will not do well in that space.
That's not what's changed. Adobe's Flex and Air are for programmers, and hit at the Microsoft core, and actually work on Mac and Linux, for real. Adobe is a real competitor now, which is something they haven't been.
AJAX and Rails are also technologies that are growing fast, pushing the envelope of cross-platform rich internet applications. Combined, that was the real glimpse into the future, and Microsoft wasn't a part of it.
Silverlight is not glorious or innovative. They are simply trying to keep pace, which is fine by me. They should. But to think that Silverlight is in any way outrageously superior or will kill anything is sheer fantasy.
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