Silverlight vs. Flash and other pundit fodder

Yet another blog post has hit the airwaves and become all atwitter about Flash and Silverlight, the competition, Adobe vs. Silverlight, etc. While this makes for interesting pundit fodder, I just think that the people observing the situation don't really, well, get the situation.

Earlier this year, just after Mix in Las Vegas, I was asked by a client about what Silverlight is, because he read about how it was supposed to be "Microsoft's Flash killer." If I had a dime for every headline like that, right? I told him that there were different perspectives on what its role was, but killer wasn't one of them in my mind. I believe the root of the difference truly comes from the history behind Silverlight and Flash.

Flash began its life as a way to make stuff dance on a Web page. Let's not kid ourselves, it was a cosmetic thing. Over time, it introduced more UI elements and a scripting language to make it more than just a timeline of moving objects. Silverlight, by comparison, set out to be a great many things, rooted in its big brother, WPF, a UI technology intended to (in my view) kill the awful Windows Forms. Remember that Silverlight was once called "WPF/E" for "WPF Everywhere." I think these two technologies started from two different angles, and today can do many of the same things. Yet their origins still largely dictate their dominant use.

Initially, I felt that Silverlight's greatest strength was the ability to build line-of-business apps that didn't suck, and deployment was a snap. If you've ever worked in a corporate environment where dozens of barely maintained Windows Forms apps get passed around on network shares or installed by phantom IT forces, then you know what I'm talking about. Learn a few important concepts about WPF/Silverlight, and you're well on your way to leveraging hoards of .NET code monkeys to make good stuff. This is hardly the goal of Flash.

When you really let go of the punditry, link baiting and scandalous headlines, and God forbid put on your business hat, you see that in the current universe, Flash and Silverlight seem intended for two different things. I'd never put Silverlight on the front page of a marketing site because the penetration rate. But on the other hand, you bet I'm using it today to handle file uploading deeper in a site. Then I added a simple out-of-browser app for my most passionate audience, and guess what my Silverlight 3 penetration rate is now? 20%! Add another 20% for version 2.

With the forthcoming Winter Olympics being broadcast via Silverlight, I suspect we'll see another bump in penetration. But all of the predictions about a winner are silly. Advertising will be Flash for a very long time to come. Silverlight will be the dominant line-of-business platform on corporate networks as soon as skillsets align with it. I'll push my audiences on public sites toward it because they're passionate enough to want the content it brings.

So what has Microsoft truly accomplished? They put browser-based rich UI (and dare I say, animation) in the hands of a bazillion .NET developers, using tools they already know. My prediction is not that there are clear winners here, but a long-term coexistence. The versus debate causes a needless holy war that non-technical management types will read and want a VHS vs. Betamax prediction instead of leaning toward the right tools for the job.

5 Comments

  • "Silverlight will be the dominant line-of-business platform on corporate networks as soon as skillsets align with it."

    Interesting comment. Do you mean vs Flash, or for everything client-side?

    Tim

  • Not versus anything, specifically really. Flash isn't really a contender in that space today, so that wouldn't change. But it would certainly come at the expense of WinForms apps and, because they're still out there, ActiveX controls and Java applets.

  • Very nice article. I'm from the Flash side of The Force, and never moved toward Silverlight because it would be too time consuming migration. Now you present the same scenario from a perspective of a developer with .NET background, fair enough that they keep on their platform and evolve inside it, for sure they will achieve much better results than tring to learn something else from scratch.

    As bottom line I should say that, as long as the platform is not a problem for the end user, there's space for everyone.

  • Nice article! Less thinking in terms of OR or VERSUS, but more in AND and COEXISTENCY. As, one choice is not a choice... and people like to choose.

    Did you also take in consideration that sooner or later more and more companies will move over to the cloud (or other kind of web based solutions)?

    So that development of LoB applications and the way in which they integrate and communicate with the host machine will also change.

  • The discussion about Silverlight being basically WPF is certainly on target, but I think hides that Silverlight additionally has rather deep roots in ASPX.

    I've long felt that the Silverlight/Flash argument completely missed the point. Even if Flash never existed, there would still be a need for Silverlight. Why? Because how browsers limit ASPX (ASP.NET). Microsoft has substantial web server penetration. I simply don't believe that MS was sitting around thinking we have WPF where else to stick it. Instead, I think MS has been for many years looking at how to make fuller web technologies. When their last technology didn't quite deliver they had by then adopted the WPF approach to UI and so obviously something along that path would be considered.

    The reason the distinction matters is this. While on a certain very real level Flash is the competition, I don't think that much matters. Not only is Silverilght going to be attractive for Business apps, but it is going to ripple though the entire .NET community including the ASPX designers. It is certainly the case that anyone not wanting to lose customers is going to be hesitant, but it is also true that thousands of .NET programmers are going to sneak it into their personal sites, while even non-programmers will help adoption by installing modules into their ASP.NET driven websites (such as DotNetNuke).

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