Microsoft / Adobe Competition Heating Up

MicroAdobe writes "Microsoft has noticed that some of the coolest sites on the Web, YouTube and MySpace included, get much of their flash from Flash and other design programs sold by Adobe. But as Microsoft gets ready to ship its own line of tools for designers and Web developers, the company is finding it must also defend against Adobe on its home turf, the desktop. At the same time, the line between Internet and desktop programs is blurring, and both companies see an opportunity to capture new business." The article focuses on the competition and doesn't even mention that Adobe's CEO called Microsoft a $50 billion monopolist.

Re:Ack!

[the linux geek]

It is actually cross-platform. WPF/E or Silverlight, as it is now called, supports both Linux and Mac OS systems.

Cant take risks here

[unity100]

Unfortunately.

this is a matter of business.

setting up a client in a framework/infrastructure means this client will be doing all his/her/their business on that framework/infrastructure, building and expanding on that, adapting to that, basically living on that.

and when the company that provides that platform pulls the plug or pulls a crap with that platform's users, client and his business is in trouble. this had happened before with many "new experiences and products", and many people had gone through arduous restructuring and readaptation in order to go on with their business on a new platform.

And apologies, but microsoft is not some company that has a great reliability record.

ill set up as many clients as i can on open/free platforms as i did before. because this is their BUSINESS, they are making a living on that, and that cant be risked.

Linux support must be getting too good

[also-rr]

I remain convinced that part of the reason that Microsoft is attempting to push it's own alternative to Flash is because Linux support is finally decent.

Not only is there the binary client but some of the free alternatives can now handle YouTube. Development was getting a little closer to cross platform content and entertainment that the internet promised rather than the platform locking that was looking likely at one point.

Anyway I installed swfdec today on a PPC machine and documented the steps [revis.co.uk]. The results are very good for an application in such an early stage of development. While you might think the internet *with* Flash is annoying, you try living without it for a while and see how much the Firefox "you need more plugins to view this page" bar bugs you.

Re:Ack!

[drinkypoo]

It is actually cross-platform. WPF/E or Silverlight, as it is now called, supports both Linux and Mac OS systems.

Go take a look at the Silverlight Downloads [microsoft.com] and tell us where the Linux download is. Mmkay?

Re:Compatability

[vought]

About Microsoft: They may start out cross-platform, but eventually the mac version will fall behind on patches and then get EOL'd.

Oh, just like Framemaker.

And Premier. ...and lots of other apps Adobe used to develop for the Mac.

And look at where Photoshop is going...an interface mess that's more Windows-on-MacOS than a Mac application.

Adobe has steadily been losing my respect for years. Perhaps it's because they seem bent on becoming the Microsoft of creativity-based visual communications software.

Re:Compatability

[notaprguy]

Ummmm....how about Mac Office...the single most successful Mac application ever? In many ways it is better than Office for Windows. But really that's beside the point. Adobe is smart enough to know that for WPF/e/Silverlight to be successful that it MUST be good on platforms other than Windows or nobody will use it. I mean, the whole poing of what they're trying to do is provide an alternative to Flash video (short-term) and Flash "apps" (medium-term). The only way they can do that is to be cross-platform.

Re: SVG

[drinkypoo]

The Adobe viewer is the only way to show SVG content in Internet Explorer (that I'm aware of).

A quick google for "SVG plugin internet explorer -adobe" turned up MozzIE [sourceforge.net] (hackish) and Renesis Player [emiasys.com] which is cross-platform for "Windows, Windows CE, Linux, Mac and more".

You haven't tried very hard to find an alternative, have you?

Re:Web developer speaking here

[Tatsh]

Plus, and this is a different topic, Adobe doesn't get on kids' cases about having pirated copies of their software, since it's only affordable by industry (who pays for it) anyway. Yes, they do. Photoshop starting with CS had product activation, which is cracked by the release groups, but it's much more than before where it didn't verify at all whether a serial number was real.

Re:Web developer speaking here

[aztracker1]

So it's easier to use. So what? When you're producing output on behalf of a client, you have a wider responsibility: to ensure that the output is actually worthwhile. The tools you use to do that are immaterial. Past history's shown that Microsoft's development tools group 'gets' web standards about as much as Bill Gates himself appears to (Adobe have known to be almost as bad, in absolute fairness).

Hmm.. that must be why Visual Studio 2005, and the Expression Web Designer tool default to XHTML compliance as a default. That and EWD will separate your style definitions out... You probably didn't know that.

As to the rest.. I wholeheartedly agree... Frontpage was terrible.. And Office's output to HTML produced absolute crap... However, EWD and Visual Studio are pretty nice... ASP.Net is awesome... As to the implications, well perhaps you can expand on this... If the output is standards compliant XHTML + CSS, then I don't see the real issue here...

Re:So what is .net?

[Mongoose Disciple]

Basically, this is over in a completely different space. Apples and oranges. Although, technically WPF is part of .NET 3.0.

If C#/.NET is Microsoft's answer to Java, this is their answer to stuff like Flash.

I mean, sure, you could use Flash to essentially build web forms or basic UI. We've all seen that done, and in that sense you could say WPF/Silverlight/etc. overlaps with the kind of UI you could build with C# web controls or Java Swing or whatever, but it's not what Flash is really for. This is MS trying to compete with Adobe in areas where people should actually be using Flash on purpose.

(Oh, and since you ask, Visual Studio is the IDE that one would typically use to create .NET framework applications. Related but not really one becoming the other.)