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Why Silverlight will (!!) succeed
Controls. I think that is one of the main reasons. I thought about naming this post “What Microsoft does well” but figured I’d strike a cord with the Adobe world by speaking on Silverlight succeeding. :-)
Anyways. For those that don’t know, a control is equivalent to a component in Flash/Flex. Microsoft, IMO, is the king of controls. Look at ASP.NET. The controls in there are SUPER easy to use and there are a ton of them. ColdFusion, no one uses cfgrid, etc. Microsoft owns Adobe in this arena, at this current stage.
Microsoft has taken their controls approach to Silverlight. Flash has button, textfield, etc. Anything beyond the basics, you’re on your own. Silverlight is bringing multiple controls that go way above and beyond (see the Map control when you get a chance) out of the box. There are businesses built around building ASP.NET and now WPF/Silverlight controls.
What does all of this mean? IMO, Silverlight development may become easier than Flash Platform development. Mind you, I’m not turning my back on Flash/Flex rather, as always, keeping an open mind about new technologies.
Big Flash Companies using Silverlight:
* Avenue A | Razorfish (top agency that does a ton of work with Flash) is using, and excited about, Silverlight.
* Metalliq, who is responsible for the Flash CS3 Components, is using Silverlight (and built a VERY nice app) and loving it as well. Top Banana is sweet app built by Metalliq (they just demo’d it). A full-fledge video editing swf that banks out at 50k. Whoa…that was a shocker but quite amazing (for what I just saw).
As I’ve said before, don’t sleep on Silverlight. There is a lot you can do with it, very fast, and if it fits your situation…USE IT!
Posted by John C. Bland II on April 30, 2007 11:24 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Components available in Flex out of the box go way beyond just a button and a textfield and you would be surprised at the number of components that the developer community has contributed .. here’s a small subset http://flexbox.mrinalwadhwa.com
I do agree that SilverLight is something to watch out for … but the number of available components is not a factor.
Posted by: Mrinal Wadhwa | May 1, 2007 5:10 AM
We disagree, but that is fine. Your component list is a great resource but it makes my point.
Some components built for Flex are great for what they do. Now, look at the ASP.NET controls. Compare. The native set of components is greater (in number) and, in some cases, more advanced.
http://xceed.com/Grid_WPF_Demo.html
That is for WPF but my point is still there. It is a great looking/working control. Xceed’s business is built around components/controls. Who is doing this (specifically) in the Flash Platform world? Metalliq? Ok. +1 for Flash Platform. +1 for Silverlight too. Who else?
Controls is not the #1 reason why it will succeed. It is definitely, IMO, in the top 5 though. Take a backend developer that owns C# (can code it in his/her sleep) but knows nothing about XAML. They can, very easily, throw a Map control (which is sweet) on the page and utilize it natively in C#.
That’s what I mean. You can easily take the controls (which are pretty nice; you need to see them before discounting my theory), know nothing about XAML, and build a full app.
Do that in Flex. You can’t. I’m a Flex developer. You have to learn MXML and AS3 to properly utilize components (not all the times AS3 is fully needed).
Trust me…I’m open to all possibilities. Silverlight controls make it much easier to adopt Silverlight (for .NET based languages, which include: VB, C#, Ruby, Python, etc) than Flash Platform components.
Thanks for your comment though. ;-)
Posted by: John C. Bland II | May 1, 2007 9:12 AM