Microsoft lost the media player wars the day Adobe made Flash compatible with movies. It is no coincidence that soon after that, Microsoft decide to make Silverlight. And if Microsoft wins that (which I doubt they will, Flash is just too entrenched), expect to see this: "We're sorry, future versions of Silverlight aren't compatible with Mac or Firefox or any browser except Internet Explorer. So if you want to view this content, switch to Internet Explorer. Oh, by the way, we've pulled all downloads of Silverlight that are compatible with those products."

Microsoft can't stand to be second in anything. When you do everything, you do nothing well.

silverlight failed to gain even limited marketshare. So what does microsoft do? Make silverlight 2. That doesn't seem like a winning business strategy.

Why don't they take their time and make it right the first time?

I'm betting it'll take more and more marketshare over time. One big advantage is that windows developers now can make RIA's (or whatever you call them) much more easily, with the skills they already have.

Plus they're starting to push Silverlight (in a typical MS way of course), see http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080602-new-hp-microsoft-live-search-deal-is-all-about-silverlight.html

I ain't no MS fanboy, but I think it's realistic to say that SL will become a serious contender for Flash in a few years. This doesn't mean Flash will dissapear of course.

Anyway, both will never become nr1 because good old HTML (and the languages that produce it like PHP, ASP.NET, etc) still stands strong (especially since search engines can't index Flash and the likes)

What a bunch of two faced hypocrites there are on this site.

Oh Microsoft are so evil, they dominate there posistion, anti competetive, we want choice, blah, blah, blah...

However, can we have a single multi platform, bloated piece o crap please, we don't want any choice, we like Flash, granted it's getting worse (for the end user), with every release, but hey ho, we don't want competition, after all Netcape navigator was fantastic and look what Microsoft did to that !

What do you want, really? One company dominating or choice?

When I sent an e-mail complaining that they use Silverlight for their catchup service, I got a stock minimum spec. reply back, no hint of an apology or a "we're working on a proper Flash or DivX version"

For a commercial organization like ITV to be using such a poorly adopted plugin they must either be getting paid by MS, or (and this is my theory) they are just showing willing with the catch up TV but have no intention of allowing it to succeed.

Microdobe

Flashsoft

Silverflash

Flashlight (hehehe)

Remember folks, you heard it here first!

Paris 'cause Microsoft could learn something from her:

Don't make something that you regret when it hits the street.

Microsoft have a long history of releasing OK/crap/apalling version 1.0 technologies. It's a truism never to use version 1.0 of some software because of Microsoft's reputation. However, by version 3.0 or 4.0 Microsoft usually has something that's not too bad, such as IE and Windows (in the context of when they came to market).

Microsoft eventually destroyed Netscape with that approach. It's worked for them before, so it's not surprising they'll try it again.

You can add office apps and game consoles to that model of competition as well. Strong incumbents were defeated (or a grudging parity was reached for the games consoles).

I think it's a bit wrong to assume that the current depth of deployment of Flash makes Silverlight a non-option, but I would certainly guess the the dirty tricks brigade in MS have already submitted their ideas to elbow Adobe out of the way.

Pity Silverlight didn't work for Chairman Gates recently, as noted within this organ. What goes round comes round Bill.

Silverlight is doomed to fail. Flash is supported (to atleast some degree) on majority of OS's out there, even retro OS's and mobile ones too, Microsoft isn't about compatability and Flash's strength is its ability to work almost everywhere.

the main reason for not using flash is it doesn't play well with screen readers. How accessible is sliverlight to the visually impaired?

Very often the first viable product on the market that fills the need and fills it well will claim the market share. Once a product or service has a large chunk of the market share it's very difficult to shift people away from it unless you have a far superior product/service and the original one has been resting on its laurels.

Hoover were the brand leaders in vacuum cleaners until James Dyson came along and Hotmail was the leading webmail provider until Gmail upped the stakes. Yahoo was a huge force on the internet until they were usurped by Google. These conquests were pretty much for the same reasons and illustrate the uphill battle Microsoft faces when trying to snaffle market share off the likes of Flash who have not dropped the ball and continue to innovate.

Ironically it's also the same challenges faced by Firefox and Linux and Open Office when trying to claim market share from more established products like IE, Windows and Microsoft Office.

For Silverlight to work they have to get the software out there.. easy if they slip it into Windows Update but they risk anti-trust suits. They also have to get everyone to recognise that it's out there so that web developers start creating content in Silverlight. Both those criteria rely on getting the support on multiple platforms so that the client works in Linux, OSX, PDAs and mobile phones. Microsoft don't like doing that though as cross platform compatibility is not their business (hence no Microsoft Office for Linux).

To be fair, it does feel like Silverlight 1 has only been out for, what, five minutes? I can't help feeling that Microsoft may not be putting out an image of platform stability.

One of the reasons Silverlight IS being taken seriously is because its not some proprietary systems lobbed together. It's C# - a proven language which we can all agree is matured and familar to millions of developers. It's XAML - the pinnacle of UI/Code seperation/Designer friendliness. Silverlight 1 was really a toe-tipper - it was Xaml, but no real .net (Javascript was used I beleive). Silverlight 2 is the big one and I beleive will attract a significant amount of development, especially for those c# desktop developers that want to do web-apps, but have no desire to learn the complexities of AJAX or the proprietary ActionScript stuff of flash.

Thus far theres been no compelling reason to use Silverlight 1 - the tools werent mature, and it was still (unfortunately) a bit of a mismatch of languages. IMO Silverlight 1 should *not* have been released as it HAS caused confusion - even amongst those of us who shouldnt be confused by simple versioning. However once Silverlight 2 launches, and MS give us non-beta tools to actually develop in, we'll have the best development tools and a superb runtime compared to the current mess, and the alternatives of AJAX and flash.

I think it's naive to suggest MS are out there developing clients for "alternative" platforms, to simply pull the rug from under them. In what world would any company spend millions developing a complex runtime engine, to then stop supporting it to give its own platform no benefit - I mean do you really think a Mac user is going to go "Oh, my silverlight app doesnt run anymore, so I'd best buy and install Windows"? I don't think so. I mean, is ther anyone out there using Flash for enterprise level systems where its vitally important that Flash works? Or do you use it for youtube, "Yeti throwing Penguin games" or whatever? If you use it for the former, you probably need medical help.

Silverlight has the potential to make flash look poor just look at the spec and the install size, flash has become a bloated monster. It's just a shame that it's MS behind the idea i suppose it's possible that moonlight will live on if MS did pull the plug on mac/linux support.

I didn't even realise silverlight 1 had been launched, i've certainly never come across it.

What's with this Silverlight 2 thing?? Surely it should be called SilverLight 2.0

That .0 is extremely important these days, far from being just 2 extra bytes in it's name, it's a marketing tool!!!

Not to mention that the beta should be 2.0rc1b2build5734homepremium

That would coincide a lot better with the rest of their business strategy!

Long live the penguin!

Wade: Silverlight is aimed at Rich Internet Applications, same as Adobe Flex and AIR. Media capabilities are only part of it. And why shouldn't they try to be the best in a given field? Isn't that what any successful company does?

James: Silverlight, in the scheme of things, is new. Flash didn't become ubiquitous for many years after it's release. As to why they didn't make it right the first time, you're right it should be perfect and complete at version 1 like all other software release by anyone else. Oh wait a minute ...

Thanks, to Microsoft i have got visifire which is an amazing charting component which is powered by silverlight.At last i got a break from flash platform

let's face it -- you can say what you will but Microsoft is and always has been realistic. What they couldn't accomplish in Silverlight 1 they are targeting for Silverlight 2. It might take a while.

Another two releases for complete parity?

And they can't do this forever -- with MS's revenues -- at this rate, if they don't get it in the next, say, 75 years, they might have to give up.

now "powered" by Silverlight, click here to download!

Telerik had 1.0 controls out a long time ago and has had 2.0 controls out as well. Their grid is also not ready yet 8(.