“Microsoft ships the world’s most popular HTML client”
Don’t’ you mean “Microsoft ships the world’s most used HTML client” ? There’s a big difference between popularity and market impact. Especially in this case where IE is what ships with Windows, the most used OS.
(For the record I actually do prefer IE since v8)

There’s a simple way to look at this. Just answer a simple question: What will Silverlight do on the web that is new?

If it’s just replacing something else, then it probably won’t survive. We have Flash, we have HTML5 for what’s coming with audio/video content.. Where does Silverlight fit into the picture? What does it do better than existing solutions? What does it do that existing solutions cannot do?

I can’t answer this question, because I have no idea what Silverlight would be any good for. And if the answer is only something that we can already do with Flash, CSS, HTML 5, JScript, etc, then Silverlight has only one purpose: redundancy.

Microsoft may make the most popular web browser, but nobody is programming for it specifically because we can all see the light at the end of the rainbow now, and IE is still under the dark clouds.

The answer is, Silverlight is not Flash. Too many people have the impression it is simply another way to present videos or stream audio.

It’s actually a deep platform that supports rich line of business applications. I know, I’ve been with the companies that leverage it’s power to build enterprise class application.

What’s more, because it is based on a common runtime library, it’s also easy for many developers to pick up due to it’s support for upstream languages. C#? F#? VB.Net? Ruby or something else? Any of these are possible as languages of choice for generating applications, as opposed to the Flash world where everyone must conform to one language, ActionScript in the Flex environment.

Do the technologies compete? Certainly. But are they the same? No. And anyone comparing HTML5 to Silverlight isn’t comparing a hammer to a screwdriver, in my opinion, they’re comparing paint and primer to brick and siding.

I presume that you’re also an ardent support of Adobe Air as well then? If you were an independent consultant recommending a combination of technologies, how would you go about defining the benefits of Air against Silverlight? And what about pure HTML5/AJAX applications that live on the web (and not in desktop-like application experiences).

I’m no great fan of Silverlight, but I don’t have a problem with its existence. I’m just curious if your comments are genuine and that you’re also in favor of a competitor’s product like Air. In other words, does your commitment support both flathead and Phillips-head screwdrivers?

Which still fails to answer the question. I mean seriously? “Business Applications”? We need a whole new platform to create the next Office clone?

People are sick of business applications. We’ve had Microsoft create 12 versions of Office in the last 15 years, and people have stopped upgrading them because none of them add anything worth having anymore. If this is the best Microsoft can do, then I’m extremely disappointed.

If you’re talking enterprise class server side environments with rich content and web-based apps, then I hate to break it to you, but Microsoft lost that war over three years ago.

@Otto:
Just FYI, SilverLight is not IE specific. In fact, it doesn’t even need to run in a browser.

SilverLight let’s me program in C# and use a robust IDE. It also let’s me write applications that function outside of the browser. These are 2 features that HTML5 doesn’t offer.

HTML5 will provide a standard that I can confidently deploy without asking users to install a runtime or plug-in. Something that SilverLight doesn’t offer.

While there will be many situations where either technology will fit, there will be just as many cases where one is a clear choice.

You begin by stating that comparing Silverlight with HTML5 is like comparing hammers with screwdrivers, but you fail present any example on how exactly they would differ?!

I think Silverlight is good, and HTML5 is laying years and years ahead, so I don’t see any problems with using SL now. However, if HTML5 today would be fully finished and implemented in all browsers, there’s no way MS would invest in SL.

@Chris
I use AIR far more than I use SilverLight. It’s got a larger install base and the designers I work with are more comfortable with Flash.

@Otto
I’m a bit confused by your anger over a new platform emerging. It seems that you have some serious problems with Microsoft that are completely seperate from the discussion here. While you’re clearly passionate, your statements don’t hold water.

Office has it’s faults, but I’ve consulted with over 200 companies and I can count on one hand the number that don’t use office.

As far as server-side apps goes, Microsoft has never been very strong. Hence why they’re trying to build new platforms and new tools to bring a wider array of developers on board.

Overall, we’re all in the same boat here. Regardless of our chosen platform, we’re all developers who make technical decisions based on our skills, the clients needs and the target user’s capabilities.

@Morten – yeah, “most used” or something like that may have been more precise.

@Otto – you could write anything in anything else, so I don’t quite get the redundancy argument. You could write a SQL engine in Javascript, a Javascript engine in C#, etc. Heck, multiple people wrote implementations of HTML5 Canvas on Silverlight, Brad Neuberg did SVG in Flash, and so on. Nobody cites these as examples of why we need a one-platform monoculture.

@Chris – while we tend to be relatively agnostic about many technologies that people would consider to be “competitor” (PHP, eclipse, jQuery, Python and Ruby to name a few), I didn’t mean to imply that we would be out there promoting every technology that exists. Java and Adobe Air are probably two of the most prominent exceptions.

I was primarily making an argument about HTML5, and I think it’s pretty straightforward to see why we would treat HTML differently from Air. We control an HTML5 client that has majority share, and we have a seat at the table in steering HTML’s future (Adobe has neither). We don’t have that kind of skin in the game with Air; so we have our own RIA client instead.

And that’s kind of my point. Microsoft has a stake in quite a few different platforms, and we want to be #1 in all of them — it’s just realistic that we’ll promote what we’re investing in. But when people act as if the browser is mortally opposed to RIA, you can rationally ask why Microsoft would be investing in both? And you’ll find that the people who say that tend to not actually have credible offerings in both. Another case in point would be Apple, who curiously are not out there evangelizing the idea that HTML5 will eliminate Cocoa. Since they have more than one platform, they don’t need to pretend like there is only one.

Learning new things is fun! Who would want to have only one? That would be boring!

Can’t read all the comment text in Safari on iPhone OS 3.0….

Except that SL and HTML 5 are both screwdrivers. The monoculture argument still stands though.

“These are dramatic claims that only heighten conflict”

“Microsoft ships the world’s most popular HTML client.”

Uhm, I don’t think you understand the concept of popular. You ship the most used browser, not the most popular. It’s the most used because it’s the default on Windows, which comes bundled with almost every PC. It’s not ‘popular’, it’s what people have…

“And our browser will continue to be the dominant HTML standards implementation for the foreseeable future. ”

Looking at the stats and the rise of other browsers, this claim is ridiculous. If foreseeable is 5 years, then I think IE will not be dominant is several European countries anymore. Care to rectify this claim?

Also, which browser do you mean? IE 8, 7 or 6? If you want to count them all to provclaim dominance, then you can’t say it’s a standards implementation, because 6 is not, and 7 probalby isn’t either. So please ‘get the facts’ rights.

Also, Microsoft should not be talking crap about standards, because your company has sabotaged the process for almost a decade, putting the industry back for years.

“No! Our customers should be able to use the right tool for the job at hand. ”

Oh really? You are sure it all has nothing to do with, uhm, let’s say distributing a patent-laden video encoder to get a foot in the online-video market? Seruously, who are you trying to fool here?

“So, why do certain people propagate this myth? Do they really want a monoculture world where there is only one platform for every job?”

Wow, just wow. Let’s turn that around shall we. It is Microsoft thatw ants that. 99% of your technology is closed and proprietary. Microsoft would LOVE one platform, as long as it’s controlled by Microsoft.

I don’t think the Mix website should become a platform for Microsoft propaganda. Let’s stick with the technical stuff, and stop with the half-truths and newspeak, hmmkay?

@Mike
Another commenter who clearly has many issues with Microsoft that are completely irrelevant to this post.

It’s tough to even come up with an rational response to your clearly irrational comment.

If you truly believe that Microsoft is pushing for a technology monoculture, you haven’t talked much with anybody at Microsoft or read much of the content on this site.

“People are sick of business applications”.

lol, yeah who needs software in a business anyway!

I hear a lot of love for HTML5 but people forget I’ll have to use an upgraded browser to use it. And it doesn’t deliver anything on the languages side of things. Sorry but Javascript is not the last word in programming languages.

And as for tooling support, well I’d rate Xaml tooling already above anything out there for Html, and it’s only just begun. Ask any hardcore web designer how often they tweak Html and CSS by hand. This won’t change with HTML5 IMHO.

I find it highly concerning that people who call themselves developers translate ‘business applications’ to ‘Office’. Have you ever even seen a client?
I’m currently building a ‘business application’ in Silverlight 3 that will allow users to keep an HR and Payroll administration. Presented with the choice HTML/ASP.NET or Silverlight and WCF I only needed a couple of seconds to decide even if HTML5 would have been around. In that I agree with Andrew. I’d rather define my UI in Xaml as opposed to HTML/CSS/Javascript any day.
Try it, and come back with some experience.

@Dave, @Bertrand – I don’t think that HTML and Silverlight will ever be interchangable. With HTML, you’re always going to be trading functionality for ubiquity (and vice-versa with Silverlight).

The advances in HTML are long overdue, and really aim to standardize the functionality of proprietary plugins which has had a chance to bake for a few years. Saying that we are “standardizing the older functionality of proprietary plugins” doesn’t sound very sexy, though, so people say things like “HTML5 will kill Flash”.

It doesn’t take much effort to think of really useful things that remain in the proprietary plugins which HTML hasn’t yet undertaken to standardize. Hopefully, these things will make it into future versions of HTML beyond HTML5, but the point is that there will always be a pretty significant lag.

@Mike – Thanks for you comments. Regardless of how you characterize the dominant IE market share, you’d probably agree that we’re a very significant participant in this space, which was the salient point. I was simply addressing the preposterous idea that HTML is something that is happening to Microsoft rather than with and by Microsoft.

FWIW, IE6 was the best implementation of standards available when it shipped. So it’s not fair to act as if IE6 was an act of sabotage against standards. Sure, it’s long in the tooth now, and we’d like to see people upgrade as much as you would. Between retiring support for old software and pushing IE8 via Windows Update, it’s not as if we’re making it easy for people (let alone “sabotaging” standards by encouraging people) to stick with the old browsers.

Anyway, I appreciate your interaction. We certainly don’t traffic in propaganda here, but I stand by my explanation of why Microsoft invests so heavily in both HTML and Silverlight (because we see them as complimentary). If the two technolgies exist primarily to kill each other, we never got the memo.

Personally I find that the platform is the starting point. I’ve started playing with the Windows Mobile platform for the fun of it (and the “Race to Market Challenge” was a small incentive). Silverlight isn’t an option, HTML 5 doesn’t appear to be; Adobe AIR might be an option or working in Visual Studio 2008 and putting together a WinForms app except that it really doesn’t have the look and feel that I want. Eventually though I’ll pick a tool set and start. I don’t think as a developer we can ever have too many tools. Some we come to love and can’t live without and others we realize are really cool but essentially the same as one we already know well so we don’t bother learning it until the feature set is too extensive to ignore.

I think the entire development community knows that the application game changed again and it seems to be about mobility, touch, gestures, rich media content, and connections. I don’t see one tool set being able to meet all the needs and I’ll learn which ever one I need to learn. After all, it’s just code.

“It’s tough to even come up with an rational response to your clearly irrational comment. ”

Good one that.

So me saying that IE being most-used does not make it most popular is irrational?

Me predicting that in the foreseeable future (taking 5 years as an example) IE will in fact not be dominant in Europe, that is irrational?

Me saying Microsoft has sabotaged standards, is irrational? Is it not true that Microsoft had a non-standards compliant browser product that they did not upgrade nor fix bugs for over 5 years?

These are facts Ian, you should check them before you say somebody is irrational. Because that is a non-argument and a personal attack.

My issues with Microsoft revolve around trust. I’m a developer and I have no trust in Microsoft, because of their past actions. You say my issues have nothing to do with the post. They have everything to do with the post. The success of Microsoft platforms like Silverlight depend for a great deal on developers.

Let’s say in a small business a developer can choose the technology. Let’s say he considers Silverlight. But then he thinks this (like I do): “Hmm, in the past, Microsoft sure did some awful things when it comes to compatiblity, sometimes they even completely dropped support or products on competing operating systems. And they have issued a statement/threat that Linux uses Microsoft patented technology. I don’t feel that Mono and/or Moonlight is safe, what if they deem it to infringe on essential .NET patents. I don’t think choosing this proprietary platform is the safest choice.”

So you can go on and think that all negative comments must be from irrationalists with a grudge against Microsoft, but it is a very real problem.

Go on, I’m looking forward to your argument. Am I irrational, just plain crazy, mad, a bearded OS zealot? Or do I maybe have a point, and if so, what are your counter-arguments.

@Matt

I felt that your comments were irrational for a few reasons.
#1. Poplularity of a piece of software is usually measured by it’s market share. In which case, IE is the most popular. To use personal preference as a measure of popularity is irrational, because there is not measurable data to support it. You’re opinion about it’s popularity is anecdotal.

#2. While trends may show that IE may not be the most popular browser in a handful of countries soon, it will in all likelyhood be the dominant browser for personal computers worldwide for the forseeable future. As you said, IE ships with windows, and no real competitor has emerged for windows for personal computers.

#3. The idea that Microsoft intentionally sabotaged standards is bunk. IE6 was the only major browser with CSS2 support when it was released. Keep in mind, that while there is a standards body that arbitrarily defines standards for the web, they aren’t standards until the industry accepts them. When FF and Safari came out, MSFT got off their asses and fixed IE.

#4. The things that you’ve said in both posts are opinions, but you refer to them as facts. The inability to differentiate between the two is irrational.

#5. As far as trust goes, Microsoft has done lots of things that might make people nervous, but name one software company that hasn’t. Almost every thing I’ve heard people complain about with Microsoft, are things that happen with any large company. Do some research in to Intel, Apple, Google, and IBM before you place the target solely on Microsoft.

#6. The fear that Microsoft will randomly change something is just something we developers deal with. When PHP5 came out, half of my PHP4 sites broke and my reputation as a freelancer was destroyed. I actually got started with ASP.NET because of this. The point is, every platform experiences breaking changes when upgrades happen. The Mono and Moonlight projects are both led by prominent people in the Linux community, so I’m assuming you don’t trust Linux either?

And finally, I stand by my statement that your comments have nothing to do with this post. You didn’t present any arguments or opinions about HTML5 or SilverLight, you just voiced your personal views of Microsoft.

1)HTML has old design but very common and wide used. Html 3,4,5 just add some feature like stick to that old design, if it change many revaluation to that old design then they will just name, I mean if HTML 5 change many thing then it will not HTML, it will be another thing and we can name it another thing, but as we see it still HTML.
2)Companies time to time to entirely redesign and rid of all problems but usually fail to make them popular due the lack of compatibility. Remember Microsoft DOS and IBM OS2.
3)Silverlight is not compared with flash; if you deep look at its infrastructure of Silverlight and work with both of them you will see the Silverlight is target to replace the browser. Look at XAML specifications. Think XAML as HTML and Silverlight as Browser! Think what you can’t do with Silverlight and can do with html, and think inverse.
4)Silverlight (or any other web client) seem going to be new browser, don’t make mistake that it run as plug-in in browser, it seem it just compatibility treat, it can run outside of browser and don’t shock if someday it show a browser itself as plug-in!
But don’t worry about Microsoft and dominant and trusts and so on, if Silverlight have success to spread across web and even replace HTML, it just mean that HTML have very very lack and problems cause HTML is dominant now and very popular and it mean other companies should think about redesign it completely today and create something like XAML and its infrastructure.
If Silverlight failed to replace the browser we can think this 3 condition
1)It wills no target to replace browser.
2)It has not enough infrastructure or good design to replace html.
3)It will be another time that compatibility wins.
Anyway if Silverlight win, Microsoft will get the result of investing such redesign and other companies may go behind cause of insist to html; otherwise just nothing change except regular improvement.
Personably I think XAML win is not so far.

I’m a fan of RIA’s in general, but it seems that there is a general iof ignorance of the current landscape of available RIA platforms amongst some of the commenters here. Silverlight 4 indeed looks to have a great deal of promise, and closed a number of gaps it had with Flex/Flash and added a number of new features that clearly differentiate it. That said, it is obvious that many of those comparing Flash to Silverlight know nothing of Flex. Flex is very “XAML-ish”, has a rich service invocation and data binding infrastructure, is very extensible and modular, and brings much the same “goodness” at Silverlight, WPF, et al. It also uses ActionScript, which is based on ECMA script/Javascript, enabling a very familiar language for web developers (much in the same way Silverlight brings a familiar environment for .NET developers).

If Microsoft does a good job with IE9, we’ll have a new contender for an RIA platform, since HTML5 allows much, much more capable and highly visual and responsive applications to be created natively.

My first reaction to Silverlight 4 was very favorable – my first hands-on experiences not so. It feels like it was a bit rushed out to make the PDC date, and as the saying goes “you never get a second chance to make a first impression”. I’m hopeful that it’s just early, but in Microsoft parlance, a beta is usually quite stable and functional – I would have to say that Silverlight 4 does not measure up to the usual level of quality for a MS beta.

In any case, the great news is that we’re all going to have many choices soon for creating great applications!

Why this article have such bad bakground color, my eyes get ache from reading it.

It is curious to hear that “Microsoft has co-chaired the HTML5 working group in W3C since its inception”, because it seems like Microsoft has been heavily working on the specification. Truth is that Microsoft only joined the efforts on last August, as it was heavily publicized everywhere. For example, here:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10305822-92.html

We should be all very happy to see Microsoft joining the work but of course it could have started to help earlier. ;)

I will say it one final time and I wont repeat myself anymore.

Silverlight is not a Flash/HTML replacement. It is a cross platform implementation of .NET

It is more of an assault on Java than Flash or HTML 5.

I’m a big fan of both HTML 5 and Silverlight, and use both for my professional and personal projects, based in both Microsoft and FOSS technologies. It is true that there is overlap between the functionality of the two technologies, but there is also a great deal in each that sets it apart.

I see Silverlight as, primarily, an alternative to developing applications using the full .NET stack, including WPF and WCF. For years we have struggled with deploying applications, and while technologies such as ClickOnce have helped to some extent, the perceived investment in installing various versions of the .NET framework is off-putting for many potential users. The tiny size and “browser plug-in” positioning of Silverlight dramatically reduce that problem. And Microsoft provide both Windows and OSX implementations, and support the Mono team in their efforts with the Linux Moonlight project, which is going great guns. I can now develop an application with most of the functionality of WPF which will run on nearly every desktop in the world. That’s pretty amazing.

HTML 5 empowers a different kind of application. For a large part, it provides standardised and simpler ways of achieving what web developers have been doing with Javascript/CSS hackery for the last few years, such as:
the new input field types and attributes (which include date pickers, implicit validation of certain common data values, and placeholder text);
web sockets – no more Ajax server-polling, yay!

HTML 5 also (and this is where the FUD arises) provides canvas and video elements, which is perceived as treading on the toes of Silverlight and Flash. If either of those technologies were still in an early incarnation (Silverlight 1.0, Flash 4/5) then that assessment would probably hold. But both have moved on a great deal, and the vector graphics and video streaming capabilities are almost incidental; just basic components required by the rest of the advanced functionality available. To say that these two tags negate the need for plug-ins is as ridiculous as saying that the existing HTML 4/CSS stack’s ability to display formatted text and boxes has already negated them; there is far more that can be achieved.

I seem to have rambled more than I intended. One last thing: I can see areas where the two technologies can benefit each other.

HTML 5 provides a standard for local storage, including a SQL implementation, which could and hopefully will be used by the Silverlight plug-in as an alternative to its proprietary storage.

Microsoft can incorporate the knowledge and technology from Silverlight’s video streaming into Internet Explorer to provide excellent support for the HTML 5 video tag.

And the Gestalt project has already offered web developers an alternative to ECMAScript as a client-side scripting language. With a single Javascript include element, one can suddenly write “script language=”ruby”” or “script language=”python”” and perform the same DOM manipulations, embedded in the HTML code, as previously were only possible in ECMAScript. I’m no fan of that particular language, so the sooner the Silverlight/Moonlight plug-ins which facilitate that magic become ubiquitous, the better.

People have a tendency to just bash up microsoft whenever something appears.
I believe you must accept that each technology has its strengths and as developers we must be able to determine which technology will solve our solution taking into consideration the cost of the development tools, the development time, the performance, easy maintenance.

I’m actually really looking forward to seeing how Silverlight can interact with HTML5, specifically the Canvas tag.

I am not a fan of javascript for large application development. I see the use of both Silverlight and HTML5 as a potential way to use the appropriate languages for the job.

I personally find the tooling support for Xaml more compelling than any HTML/CSS tools available.

Since HTML5 will not be officially ready until 2022 (a long time in web years) I think Silverlight will be just fine.

As an artist, without an authoring environment to work in (something like Flash) I’d find it pretty awkward ‘coding’ my graphics. Sure it might be good for basic circles and squares, but for something more complicated (cartoons) I don’t see how I can create art by using code without tearing my hair out.

Thanks for putting some reality on the stupid either or scenario for HTML5 and Silverlight. I think both are great and like you said it depends on the situation. I had a developer tell me that HTML5 will kill Silverlight because of my excitement about both. So I am glad you wrote this article.

When I heard that Google was going to abandon the plugin-style development through the browser (Gears), I was taken back a bit but after thinking about it I think that is the right way to go.

As a developer I want to write applications with the largest user base and the plugin architecture just doesn’t scale. Plugins like Flash and SL put a burden on browsers and platforms to support them and keep them updated, that burden just doesn’t exist using pure HTML (+js). On new platforms and mobile devices HTML support will come first then plugins (if ever).

It is arguable that you simply cannot create robust applications without these plugins but Google’s web applications are solid (maps, gmail, docs, wave), and they run everywhere (no plugin required). For me I just cannot afford to bet on one of these plugins to specialize in and risk isolating some users, so I choose html5

@Mark,

I’m the biggest fan of HTML5, but I don’t think we do HTML5 any favors by evangelizing it with arguments that don’t make any sense. I’m not sure that you’ve thoroughly evaluated the points you make here.

First, Flash and Silverlight are a lot more widely deployed than HTML5 right now, so it doesn’t make sense to say that you “risk isolating” fewer users by depending on HTML5. That might be a consideration in a 3+ years, but not now.

Second, you say that new versions of plugins are harder to deploy. That doesn’t make any sense, either. New versions of browsers are at least as hard to deploy as new versions of plugins.

Third, you use mobile as an example, which is pretty interesting, since mobile is one major area where Google is not betting on HTML5. Android apps are written in Java. iPhone apps are written in Cocoa. The idea of using HTML5 for mobile apps is definitely speculative at this point in history.

Fourth, you mentioned Google as being your incentive for concluding that plugins are bad. But I don’t think that Google would even agree with you. Sure, Google dropped Gears, but they replaced it with ChromeFrame, which is their official plugin that’s a superset of Gears. If you think they’re not promoting their plugin heavily, you’re mistaken.

There are plenty of reasons that HTML5 is good, but making up some imaginary battle between “plugins” and “HTML5” just confuses things.

people who call thenselves developers should stop talking about Silverlight as if it was just a content presenting tecnology like HTML. Silverlight is basicly the way Microsoft found to make .Net platform have a foot on the web, although mos people still use it only for the crappy content as replacement for Flash, you could do about anything you do in .Net directly, from content to high level aplications like some people I’ve seem port the entire Quake III xbox engine to silverlight as it was wrote in C#