Flash vs Silverlight? No, think Flex vs Silverlight.
They are both Rich Internet Application (RIA) dev platforms looking for an audience. Earlier this year pundits on both sides traded smack talk about the technology war between Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) and Adobe (NASD: ADBE) coming over the Rich Internet Application marketplace.
This Rich Internet Application battle frames Macromedia’s absorption into Adobe more clearly, and explains why Technical Communication may have taken a back seat while MACR was digested. Obviously there were much bigger fish to fry than dealing with the RoboHelp product and Flex is a top tier product.
Flex / Flash vs Silverlight Analysis:
Here’s my Executive Summary of where I see this war going:
Silverlight will very likely oWn 70% or more of the browser market share by 2009.
Browsers will likely support both Flash and Silverlight unless you’re living in a data cave with an insane IT manager who steadfastly refuses to allow web downloadable content.
Microsoft has a clear advantage pushing Silverlight into the hardcore programming world. Visual Basic users probably won’t convert to Flex but they will use Silverlight. Their base has a good business model.
Adobe has a clear advantage within their the web based programming world. Flex loyalists will never convert. Flash content will not go away, but it will get very frustrating to justify on a business sense because it is highly likely that Microsoft will be pounding away at every opportunity with browser security updates. This tactic could force the Flash source developers to constantly redo their work, costing money and time.
Adobe is betting a lot on anti-trust going their way, but with Internet Explorer’s share of the market dropping to 85%, I think they may have a very hard sell.
Any tools that aid in going from one standard to another will be in demand. An import or decompiler tool built to bring open source Flex and/or Flash .fla files into Silverlight would be a very hot application.
A .swf to .fla decompiler which could create usable input for Silverlight would also be a very hot application.
Evangelists tangle in the Web 2.0 space like there’s a Crusade going on
There is clearly a Web 2.0 war of words playing out regarding Flex and Silverlight. This is a dynamic of Web 2.0 that I looked at earlier on this blog with Cluetrain Manifesto Approach To Conversational Marketing
One side, Microsoft, fights by claiming that there is no war and developers can easily use both. The other side, Adobe, has been strapping on the shootin’ irons since the announcement back in April 2007.
One Adobe Evangelist’s version is that people are stupid for going to Silverlight and “should have their head examined” (yes, that’s an actual Adobe Evangelist’s quote!!!).
More on those views, with quotes later. Let’s get into the meat of the subject.
Development platforms: The RIA Cold War between Adobe and Microsoft
The dev platform battle looks like the Sun Tsu type of perfect storm that Microsoft was born to fight and as one user pointed out (complete quote below the fold)
…to think Adobe will ever have the enterprise scalability, DRM, Compression size, Bandwidth management, CDN support, HD quality, live broadcasting, developer api’s, hardware device accessibility (including STB’s, Mobile devices, XBox360’s, and HD-DVD players), is wishing for something that frankly the war is over on.
Advantage: Microsoft. Clearly.
In the developer’s arena both companies have separate strengths.
Microsoft’s Development Advantages
Microsoft enjoys a distinct edge due to their tools having being commonplace for developers for generations of product cycles, and they offer Silverlight as the way to open end a media solution. The funny thing is, I know plenty of Visual Studio developers who don’t do web stuff, so Flex is pretty much unknown for them. There’s a market there.
Microsoft isn’t giving Adobe any more free rides. Ever.
While Windows XP shipped with Flash Player installed, Windows Vista did not. That’s not by chance. Internet Explorer 8 is coming out in 2008 or 2009. I doubt seriously whether PDF reader technology or Flash Player will be included.
Advantage clearly falls to Microsoft. However anyone can download the Flash Player the first time they go to a website that has Flash.
Adobe’s Development Advantages
Websites are going further and further down into richer and richer entry pages, graphics and Flash taking up the entire front page real estate. Flex’s base of users is hardcore and dedicated.
Adobe enjoys a distinct edge within the web-authoring community with their Macromedia derived products. Flex has been out there for a couple generations with plenty of plugins available, and people know it.
Fourth, there is a conventional war coming soon between Windows Media (WMS) and Adobe Media Player which frames the Silverlight entry strategy as a very savvy move.
What’s Adobe doing with that Media Player?
Apparently Adobe is betting on its Flash penetration giving it an advantage in shoehorning users into downloading the Adobe Media Player, and Microsoft enjoys the simple advantage of being able to offer Windows Media Player as they have done for nearly ten cycles as an integrated part of the Windows operating system.
From Microsoft vs Adobe Smackdown - Silverlight and Adobe Media Player:
It seems to me that the ultimate winner in this battle will be the one to push the greatest number of users from one platform to another: from Windows to Silverlight, and from Flash to Adobe Media Player. Both companies seem to have a good shot at doing that, meaning that the ultimate victor is just too hard to call.
InfoWar: Not just for Tom Clancy anymore…
Countering negative opinion in the Web 2.0 world seems to have become the new front lines in marketing. This was directly answered in last year’s co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto’s joint speech with the founder of Technorati.
Opinion: I think the title of Evangelist should be changed to Mercenary. Researching Silverlight has been enlightening and it really has become a classic example of information warfare:
…misinformation such as one knowledgeable source claiming that a distributable file is TEN TIMES the size of its actuality shows job security for the Evangelist who must correct that rumor/untruth ASAP before damage is done.
And here I’ve been doing my reviews on an ad hoc basis. 
MSFT Silverlight InfoWar Position: Grow the entire pie bigger instead of fighting over the size of the slice
According to one blog’s comments area, the MSFT RIA Evangelist states that their viewpoint is that the race is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and further states that their position is that you can use both and don’t have to drop one for the other.
This is reassuring because first, it answers the contention that MSFT is starting another abandonware product and second that their (stated) position is not open warfare against the entrenched market leader, Adobe.
One quote from a MSFT Evangelist:
if you find that Silverlight (Great Experience) isn’t your cup of tea then you could always revert back to ASP.NET AJAX (Good Experience) or better yet upscale to WPF (Ultimate Experience). There is a degree of depth in which you can move in and out of the product stack.
However, as Claus Topholt, one blog author pointed out:
However, I’m pretty sure that when Scott Guthrie says that Silverlight 2.0 will be a “superset of Flex functionality”, he’s not thinking “right tool, right job, right time” - he’s thinking “Flash killer”. Which is fair enough, of course!
There’s a reason why questions go unanswered…
Interesting also is what MSFT is not saying. In one of their Silverlight product developer’s blogs this question concerning Windows Update as a distribution method for Silverlight went completely unanswered:
Why not push Silverlight out to all Windows users via Microsoft Update? Let’s not mess around here! The two big challenges Silverlight faces is adoption of the plug in and a strong artist and developer community. You can’t have a vibrant industry support until the install base gets above 90%. Flash, the dominant format in this space has adoption rates of 96% (v9) to 98% (v6).
I think MSFT is being quiet about their clear advantage. This comment’s author may not realize that 85% of the browsers that Flash work on happen to be Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Can’t we all just sing Cumbayah like the nice man asks? Apparently NOT!
Adobe doesn’t see things that way at all. It’s an adversarial zero-sum game, and they’re definitely on the defensive as they send their mercenaries / hatchet-men / evangelists out to do battle.
Maybe that’s why Jeremy Allaire, prior MACR Flash giant and ColdFusion creator, is integrating Silverlight into his new company Brightcove’s products. He did mention that Adobe was incredibly fast at sensing a threat from Silverlight and introducing the v.264 video support earlier this year. See my post about that: Major Flash Player Upgrade | eLearning Impact of Flash vs. Silverlight
Adobe InfoWar Position: Stab the hand reaching the slice of pie with your fork!
“The shroud of the dark side has fallen, begun the clone war has.” - Yoda
Ted Patrick, Adobe’s Flex Evangelist opened his blog entry titled: M$ Silverlight vs. Adobe Flash Player: “Begun the clone war has…” with that quote and states:
The goal of Silverlight is to get into the game, not to add anything new of value. If you look at the feature set on a pure technology basis, Silverlight has 80% less features and 98% less compatibility than Adobe Flash Player.
Ted, a clear heavyweight within the Flex community even before he joined Adobe, outlines his list of why to NOT go the Silverlight route:
… 0% Market Penetration - Anyone choosing Silverlight for an application today should have their head examined. Every single end user is going to download and install a proprietary plug-in from Microsoft.
It will take years before market penetration is meaningful, my guess is that 2012 might be a decent year for Silverlight. It took Flash Player 4 releases to get 80% traction and 2 more to get into the 90% market penetration.
Microsoft will get to 50% using Windows Update(cough, anti-trust, cough) but the remaining 48% is going to be a near impossible climb.
My perspective is that, among many other Adobe Evangelist statements I’ve heard, I’m taking it with a grain of salt. Methinks thou dost protest too much. MSFT has many more methods to push Silverlight than just Windows Update and Ted’s been in the game long enough to know that.
What this statement does imply is that Adobe has a strategy they will attempt of forcing Microsoft to update both Silverlight and Flash within their browser. A valid question, because merely installing a new IE security update caused Flash sites globally to stop working overnight back in late 2004.
My thoughts: Adobe is going to have to manage a competitive strategy with the IE8 upgrade looming over the horizon, and it has to be better than asking everyone to convert to Firefox.
Ted also mentioned Microsoft’s record with security as a reason people should not upgrade. This seems clearly the pot calling the kettle black:
Security and Trust - One simple question here:
Would you install an animated software runtime from Microsoft when they can’t fill security holes in Animated Cursors in Windows?
Once again I have to seriously question if anyone rides herd over their Evangelists less than Adobe does because Ted posted this after the whole PDF Javascript security flaw was exposed and less than three months after this article was published detailing the PDF issue in the Washington Post.
Comments from other users point out a large range of opinion. One of the (anonymous) comments to Ted’s blog says this:
Microsoft is pretty good at the copycat game:
+ Unix –> DOS
+ Mac OS –> Windows
+ Netscape –> IE
+ QuickTime/Real –> Windows Media
+ WordPerfect/Visicalc –> Office
+ etc…
And they dominated market share with all those, leaving the originals in the dust.
So it’s understandable that Ted would be a bit grouchy.
Here’s a clear perspective stating a draw in the technology:
From Microsoft vs Adobe Smackdown - Silverlight and Adobe Media Player:
It seems to me that the ultimate winner in this battle will be the one to push the greatest number of users from one platform to another: from Windows to Silverlight, and from Flash to Adobe Media Player. Both companies seem to have a good shot at doing that, meaning that the ultimate victor is just too hard to call.
Windows Media Player clients are something that Adobe has tried for a long time to get. Those Media Player (MPS) clients just aren’t converting from Flash, and that’s something MSFT has long oWned, and something that Adobe seeks to obtain through their Flash user base.
I’m also expecting Windows Live products (I’m blogging on LiveWriter as we speak) to be used as portals for the Silverlight upgrade along with the IE browser upgrade and the ‘antitrust’ Windows Update.
Of course there’s more raw data to this post, but I’m truncating it for sanity’s sake…
Read the rest of this entry »
