7:13pm EDT, Thu Sep 2

Microsoft Aims Silverlight at Adobe's Flash Dominance

By: The Online Reporter
Publish Date: May 04, 2007

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- Sees Future Based on 'Software and a Service' - Silverlight Will Enable More Functional Handheld Devices Microsoft will offer a free ad-supported streaming video service called Silverlight Streaming that hosts video for the its new Silverlight online media platform, the company said at its MIX 07 conference for Web developers and designers this week, taking direct aim at Adobe and its Flash technology. Silverlight Streaming can support up to DVD-quality video, according to Microsoft, and can be embedded into Web pages and multimedia Internet applications. Silverlight, which Microsoft announced two weeks ago, is a browser plug-in that media producers and publishers can use on their Web sites as a replacement for Adobe Flash. There is a Silverlight Web browser plug-in, like Flash, that allows videos and interactive applications to run on a variety of browsers, also like Flash. Flash and Silverlight were developed to play Internet-based videos that can include graphical interactivity, also known as "rich Internet applications" (RIAs). The Silverlight plug-in was announced two weeks ago. The Silverlight Streaming service was not unveiled until this week. Silverlight - The Silverlight media player for browsers. A plug-in that will allow digital media applications such as video, audio and interactive media to run in and have the same appearance in different browsers, even non-Microsoft browsers. It's intended to replace Adobe Flash. - The Silverlight platform. Web and Windows software development tools including .NET-based programming and the Common Language Runtime environment that allow the development of both client-based (PCs, phones, portable media players) and Web-based applications using Visual Studio to write code and Expressions Studio to design interfaces. - The Silverlight Streaming service. Hosts and serves Web publishers' video streams in up to DVD-quality, for free with Microsoft ads or ad-free for a fee. - Expression Studio. A suite of graphic design and animation software tools that allows designers to create "rich" and interactive applications for the Web. Microsoft expects the Silverlight platform to attract content companies and Web developers. It promises lower costs for media delivery, integration with Microsoft's existing Web and Windows development technology and compatibility with the Windows Media format. Previously code named Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (WPF/E), Silverlight allows digital media applications such as video, audio and interactive media to run and have the same appearance in different browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Apple's Safari. 'Software Plus Service' "Silverlight will enable higher quality and better applications in the browser," said Microsoft director of product management Forest Key. "Silverlight is a factored version of .NET that is optimized for the Web and simple deployment. Microsoft said Silverlight can deliver streaming videos encoded with its own VC-1 codec in up to 720 lines of resolution. Adobe Flash is currently limited to 576 lines. "Silverlight is an important aspect of our software-plus-services strategy focused on delivering great user experiences that span the Web, the PC and mobile devices, said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect (replacing Bill Gates in that role), in his MIX 07 keynote. According to Ozzie, Microsoft's future will be based on software plus services that can run on stationary devices, such as PCs and servers, or mobile devices, such as portable media players and cell phones. "It does so, in part, by bridging technical barriers that previously made it difficult for Web developers and designers to collaborate," he said. "As a result, Silverlight will play an important role in helping advance the Web with a platform for creating rich, interactive experiences." Two years ago, Ozzie was pointing out the coming importance of wireless Internet access and "the ubiquity" of broadband. Ozzie was the author of the "Internet Services Disruption" internal Microsoft e-mail in October 2005, which pointed to online services as the future for Microsoft: "The ubiquity of broadband and wireless networking has changed the nature of how people interact, and they're increasingly drawn toward the simplicity of services and service-enabled software that 'just works.'" His pitch at MIX 07 was both software and a service. Services, he said, will not replace software running in local hardware, whether a PC or a mobile device. "The simple concept of the Web is no longer simple, he said." Ozzie said that Microsoft is building a services platform that is an "open, interoperable foundation for software plus services," one that will make it possible "to build, deploy and manage service- centric universal Web and experience-first solutions that span the PC, the Web, the phone and ultimately many other kinds of devices." The platform also "brings together the best of the Web, the best of the desktop and the best of devices always using the services as a hub," he said. 'Will Change the Game' "We think Silverlight will change the game for video on the Web," Ozzie said. To compete with Adobe Flash, Microsoft developed Silverlight to run in non-Microsoft Web browsers, including Firefox and Safari, in addition to the company's' own Internet Explorer. This was quite a concession for the company, which typically prefers to ignore competing technologies. However, Microsoft support for Silverlight on the Opera browser, popular on many mobile devices, and for the Linux operating system was noticeably missing. According to the Register, Sam Ramji, Microsoft director of platform technology strategy, told MIX 07 attendees, "Post PC and Mac we will figure out where there is a sustainable platform. It comes back to sustainability...we have to look at where we can do the right thing for the long term." Ramji also made it clear Microsoft has no plans to open source Silverlight, the Register said. Adobe Not Rolling Over Adobe's Flash is regarded as the most popular technology for streaming video on the Net, thanks to sites such as Google's YouTube, which is the largest user of Flash technology. Flash is also used for online animation and gaming. Two weeks ago, Adobe introduced the Adobe Media Player, which will compete directly with Windows Media Player. It is designed to play content on devices while they are either online or offline. Adobe Media Player uses the company's Flash and Apollo technology to allow consumers to download video content and view it in full-screen mode. It's due out in beta this summer and in final version by year- end. It also offers one-click viewer ratings, ways to discover other videos and a "Favorites" feature that automatically downloads new episodes of favorite TV shows or video podcasts that a user has subscribed to. 'A Sign of Things to Come' "You should consider this as a sign of things to come in terms of our software and services platform," said Ozzie. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in building a network of data centers filled with computer servers, data storage and network systems, giving it the computing power it needs to compete with Web service providers such as Google and Yahoo. Web developers will have up to 4GB of video storage and 700 Kbps streaming for free during the beta tests. When the service goes live, the free version will include Microsoft advertising, or developers can pay for an ad-free version. The company also announced Microsoft Expression Studio, a suite of graphic design and animation tools that allows designers to create applications for both the Web and Windows. It's like the Visual Studio suite but intended for Web designers. It will compete directly with another Adobe product, Creative Studios. Microsoft's Online Efforts You Do the Ranking Xbox 360 as media player and online gaming and entertainment device............ Search (3rd behind Google and Yahoo in usage)................................................... Internet Explorer browser........................ Online music service............................... Zune portable media player..................... Windows Media Player............................ Windows DRM........................................ Silverlight................................................ Software and a Service, Not Just Software as a Service Ozzie said Microsoft would integrate its .NET framework, a programming tool used to develop software for Windows, into Silverlight. The combination of the two, he said, will give developers common tools to build both local client software and Web- based software by using Visual Studio to write code and Expression Studio to design interfaces. "We are delivering a complete family of tools and frameworks for the design, development and deployment of media rich applications from Silverlight on the Web to the full .NET framework on Windows. From Visual Studio for developers to Expressions Studio for designers," Ozzie said. "Even software-as-a-service vendors have found the need to expand their offerings to include an offline edition," he said. "The term SAAS (software as a service) has for all practical purposes been expanded at this point, and now it means software and a service." Developers, Ozzie said, have to strive "to deliver an experience to the broadest audience possible" by using the Web and at the same time maximize the capabilities of the device that's being used to access the Net access device by creating offline applications. "Some solutions might be viewed as a service with a client-side companion. Others might be viewed as client software, with a service companion," he said. The Impact on Future Handheld Devices Ozzie's description of some of Silverlight's uses brings to mind a number of portable devices that were being shown at January's CES, which offer the ability to connect to the Net and play Internet- based content when in a hotspot but still play previously downloaded content when offline. The most recent announcement of such a product is SanDisk's Sansa Connect. It automatically connects to Yahoo Music and plays "live Internet radio" when in a hotspot, but plays tracks the users has requested be downloaded when in a "coldspot." Microsoft included a badly crippled Wi-Fi in its Zune media player so it only connects to other Zunes to show what songs they have. The inclusion of Wi-Fi in Zune does seem to show that Microsoft acknowledges that wireless networking, whether Wi-Fi, WiMAX or cellular, will soon be mandatory in every handheld media-playing device. Oddly, Sony put a full-blown Wi-Fi in the Sony Mylo "communications device" that it started shipping last summer. Mylo also has a browser (Opera), several instant messaging applications and even Skype's Internet telephony. But, Sony purposely made it impossible to access online media services to download content. This shows one more way that the two companies are at odds. Sony refuses to make it easy for consumers to download content to its portable devices, whereas Microsoft sees the future for handheld devices as: online and offline, download and streaming, services and software. And Apple? Not a peep about what plans it has to include mobile broadband connectivity in future iPods. Apple's head honcho Steve Jobs keeps saying that iPhone is a bigger concept than a mere mobile phone that plays music. The first iPhones, due out in June from AT&T, certainly appear to have a lot of computing and browsing capability. However, they also appear to come up short when it comes to the kind of cheap, even free, high-speed Wi-Fi broadband connectivity that most consumers will have access to, at home, at work and in coffee shops - and in upwards of 400 US cities and the Heathrow Express and the City of London and hundreds of pubs and hotels and trains and train stations. Microsoft in years past tried to unseat Adobe's Acrobat .pdf as the accepted standard format for storing and e-mailing documents but without much success. The stakes are much bigger in the online video market because all estimates are the online video will be a very large market. There are also implications for Microsoft's dominance in operating systems because Flash and Silverlight run inside Web browsers, meaning that users never see the operating system. If a portion of PC users were to use only Web-embedded video players like Flash and other Web-based applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, databases and customer relationship management software, then non- Windows PCs such as those running Linux or Mac OS might become more widely accepted. Who cares about the operating system if it's never seen, as long as it doesn't hinder anything? That's a point that Intel has spent billions of dollars on, trying to communicate the superiority of its unseen microprocessors, only to have AMD take a large chunk of the market.