SilverLight 3 And How Microsoft Plans To Have You Install It

We blogged live at the Silverlight 3 keynote this morning and had the opportunity to look at some very interesting demos. For most people, Silverlight is “just another web video player”, but in reality it’s much more than that. HD Video streaming is only one of the infinite possibilities that SilverLight would let developers do. It’s really a platform that runs on different operating systems and Microsoft has shown that you can build and run media application, but also business applications that can work online or offline.

This morning, we talked about the fact that the current user base for SilverLight is small. Others agree. As a developer, I would not dismiss Microsoft ‘s chances of getting a significant market share in the coming years. Visual Studio is a favorite Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for a huge number of programmers, and it’s hard to argue that it is not genuinely good. Microsoft does exactly what it needs to do to get end users: it is helping companies build a better user experience and deliver value. Everyone’s interest is aligned: developers need technical help (and maybe some marketing too), Microsoft needs new developer and end users want a better experience. Microsoft actually has the means to deliver on this front, and it wants to capitalize on the fact that Adobe’s development tools are nowhere near where Visual Studio is.

This will take time, but this is probably one of the bright spots in Microsoft’s web/multi-platform strategy. Adobe should kick it up a notch.

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Computers, Top Stories
Tags: adobe, flash, Microsoft, silverlight, Thoughts