UFC 2010: HTML 5, Air, and Silverlight
July 3, 2009
Mary Jo Foley opened my eyes to a new unlimited online fighting battle in 2010. Her story with a lamentably cryptic headline appeared on June 11, 2009 as “Microsoft .Net RIA Services: Not until 2010.” You can find the article here. He story revealed that Microsoft will try to push its Rich Internet Application technology into the market in 2010. She wrote:
.Net RIA Services is designed to allow coders to bring together the .Net programming model with Microsoft’s Silverlight competitor to Adobe Flash. Microsoft made a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the technology available in March, but didn’t provide any final availability information.
The RIA acronym means stuff like Adobe Flash and Google’s HTML 5 methods. The idea is that a computing device with an Internet connection can look and feel like a traditional application, a DVD player, or an immersive game. The end of shrink-wrap software and the money machine that made Microsoft and Adobe the big dogs each is today is likely to whine and stumble to a limp along, not a footrace.
I want to capture my thoughts about the dust up:
- I think Adobe is the weakest of the three combatants in the UFC 2010 digital slugfest. Adobe’s pushing the envelope with its license fees now. The sudden spate of security problems coupled with the balky nature of some Adobe Air implementations means that whatever cash Adobe has will not be enough to cope with the GOOG and the Softies.
- The Google team has a quasi-open source angle. The Microsoft team wants everyone to get with the Windows agenda, memorize it, and live it. This is a toss up because Google has been stumbling of late with regard to security, government regulations, and that old annoyance copyright. Microsoft is Microsoft, so it is a force no matter how wacky the Silverlight code may be.
- The financial climate, despite the sunny news from TV commentators, looks bleak to me. As a result, each of these UFC 2010 fighters will be ready to rumble. I think fingers in the eyes, low blows, and blows to the back of the neck will be entertaining tactics to watch.
In short, Ms. Foley reminded me to make time in 2010 for this traveling road show.
Stephen Arnold, July 3, 2009
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2 Responses to “UFC 2010: HTML 5, Air, and Silverlight”
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I’m hoping HTML5 will win and a thousand open-source options will bloom.
But I’m betting on Adobe, because of the ubiquity of Flash. I expect they’ll put all the Air tools into the Flash download, and then their Air apps will be tiny to download (in the background, even) and widely compatible.
Avi