Comments on: Silverlight 3′s Chicken-or-the-Egg Conundrum

By: tdyen

tdyen — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:53:51 +0000

I suspect when the windows update service goes out of beta and requires Silverlight then it will become ubiquitous. There are a number of products that Microsoft can bundle Silverlight with too, to increase its market penetration but until the recent release of Silverlight 3 it was probably wise of Microsoft not to push it too hard as it has been immature.

By: John

John — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:48:38 +0000

This site should test for 64 bit operating systems before offering to instal Adobe Flash Player, as there is no Flash player for 64 bit browsers.

By: MiddleTommy

MiddleTommy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:55:46 +0000

I never remember to install flash until I go to that website that needs/requests it. I plan to develop on SilverLight with that in mind.

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:55:54 +0000

BBC iPlayer uses Silverlight. I’d like to know what proportion of installs are due to that.

By: Lex

Lex — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:53:18 +0000

A) I don’t see the chicken or egg problem… getting users to install silverlight isn’t hard… it takes 3 minutes (at most) and doesn’t even require a browser restart, might take a tab refresh (unlike flash witch requires a browser close to install). If you build a site that can use it, use it, if not then cool, don’t. For .Net conversion… did a full convestion of a .net radial graph app in less than 24 hours to silverlight… never could have done that in flash

By: www.cmtan.com » Blog Archive » SilverLight 3 And How Microsoft Plans To Have You Install It

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:40:45 +0000

[...] morning, we talked about the fact that the current user base for SilverLight is small. Others agree. As a developer, I would not dismiss Microsoft ’s chances of getting a significant market [...]

By: Hamranhansenhansen

Hamranhansenhansen — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:59:35 +0000

The whole idea of a browser plug-in is anachronistic and quaint. Flash and QuickTime are the only relevant ones and today 95% of the time they are used to play an ISO MPEG-4 H.264/AAC movie, the same one you find on iPod and Blu-Ray. The same one the browsers are building in native support for.

Microsoft should be making some modern software. Their latest mobile IE browser uses the IE4 engine from 1997. Two years after the iPhone which has Safari 4. It’s embarrassing.

By: JDoors

JDoors — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:06:44 +0000

All I’ve got to say on the subject: “New” version, still not compatible with IE8 64-bit. Hey Silverlight developers, pick up the phone and call the IE people already.

By: John Dowdell

John Dowdell — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:38:37 +0000

[ Resubmitting this comment, which appears to be in moderation... I'll break up the URLs in case that banned me. ]

“When did Flash become ubiquitous? Was it when YouTube came along? No, it was when Microsoft bundled it with Windows XP.”

No, Macromedia Flash Player consistently tested above 90% consumer support before Windows XP arrived:
ht tp:/ /web.archive.org/web/20001215011300/ht tp:/ /www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html
ht tp:/ /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_xp

Microsoft itself had used Flash since its pre-Macromedia FutureSplash days. It was included as the only non-Microsoft software shipping with Windows XP in part because it displayed Microsoft’s installation/welcome experience. However, this distribution stayed stuck at Player 5, and so was shipping old Players which needed updating after Player 6′s arrival in March 2002. (Rephrased, only the first six months of WinXP assisted in distributing the current version of Flash.)

My take: The WinXP distribution, like YouTube’s adoption, were both nice events, but each added to Flash’s ubiquity, and neither caused it.

(Did Brian really say “AIR is a security nightmare”? I’d prefer not to act until I see a full and direct quote, thanks.)

jd/adobe

By: Stilgar

Stilgar — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:52:16 +0000

As a Software Engineer who works on a Web service which displays upload videos of various formats, I have mixed feelings about Silverlight. My problem with Silverlight is that it’s a solution to a problem that Adobe had already solved with Flash. However, I can also tell you that quality Flash developers are damn hard to come by. If we made the decision to switch to Silverlight on our Web service, any of the existing developers could start working on Silverlight apps because we already have Visual Studio and a working knowledge of C++/C# and .NET, and therein lies the appeal to me.