http://www.computerworld.com/action/...icleId=9016683
Quote:
Is Microsoft's Silverlight likely to shine?
Video space heats up, but a slew of deals doesn't equal a cakewalk
Eric Lai
April 16, 2007 (Computerworld) -- In touting deals it has signed with Internet video broadcasters such as Netflix Inc., Brightcove Inc. and Major League Baseball, Microsoft Corp. is declaring that its nascent Silverlight rich media software is not only a would-be Flash killer but also a high-definition video delivery system that takes on, among others, Apple Inc.'s QuickTime.
At the massive National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas on Monday, Microsoft announced that those companies, as well as a slew of other media firms, will produce and deliver content including online video on Silverlight.
"Microsoft’s really stepping up what they are doing on the video side of things," said John Bromhead, vice president of marketing at Tarari Inc., a San Diego-based maker of high-end video hardware that is supporting Silverlight.
Into the Light
Silverlight is a free plug-in from Microsoft that allows Windows and Linux PCs as well as Macintoshes to display fancy animated ads, run minisoftware or games, or play DVD-quality video, all inside the Web browser. Until today, Silverlight was known as Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere (WPF/E). It remains in development, though users can download the plug-in and try out sample content today.
Previously, Microsoft had mostly talked up WPF/E’s ability to match Adobe Systems Inc.’s dominant Flash player in more traditional rich media areas.
But Forest Key, a director of product management at Microsoft's server and tools division, bluntly claimed the superiority of Silverlight, along with Microsoft’s upcoming Expression design and video encoding tools, on the less-talked-about video front.
Flash has "some video capabilities, and some success in that market," Key said. But Silverlight offers "better video quality than Flash," while the Expression tools will be "cheaper, faster and better" than Adobe’s offerings, he claimed.
Key has some credibility to back up what on the surface sounds like unwarranted cockiness. Before joining Microsoft several years ago, Key was a senior manager at Macromedia Inc., where he helped oversee Flash.
Key is also a former video editor and animator at George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic whose feature film credits include Star Wars and Big Love. From that experience, Key said, he understands the technical needs of the creative community as well as how to position Silverlight and Expression in a way that "stokes their passion as storytellers."
Not only is Silverlight more convenient than conventional video players such as QuickTime, RealPlayer or Microsoft’s own Windows Media Player, said Microsoft, it may also offer video quality equal or superior to those fuller-fledged offerings. Silverlight can play video at 720P high-definition quality -- the same 720-line resolution used by DVDs. Depending on bandwidth, videos start playing either immediately or after a few seconds of caching. That ensures that picture quality doesn’t degrade, Key said.
Under the hood
Silverlight uses the VC-1 video codec, originally developed by Microsoft as Windows Media Video 9 but now available as an open standard that has been adopted by other vendors.
According to Tarari’s Bromhead, VC-1 is technically superior to other codecs such as MPEG-4, which is used by QuickTime, especially in the area of digital rights management (DRM).
Those content protection features make VC-1-based systems such as Silverlight and Windows Media Video more attractive to movie studios and others conscious about protecting their content and/or making money from it, said Kathleen Maher, an analyst at Tiburon, Calif.-based Jon Peddie Research. And while Microsoft is aggressively going past the PC to get cable set-top boxes to run Silverlight, she said, "that’s a race that Apple is just starting."
All about the eyeballs?
As for Flash, Maher agreed that the prices Adobe now charges for its Flash and Acrobat authoring tools are "indeed relatively expensive. ... However, the prices are in line with professional tools and the businesses that use them consider them the cost of doing business."
She also said that wooing the hearts and minds of creative types, as Microsoft hopes to do at its upcoming Mix conference, won’t be enough. There is also the cold, hard issue of the number of eyeballs that Flash currently owns.
"Installed base is the name of the game," she said.
Key said he is well aware of the issue. The deal with the video broadcasters, as well as content-delivery accelerators such as Akamai Technologies Inc., should accelerate the spread of Silverlight and avoid Silverlight/Expression being stuck in a chicken-and-egg scenario, he said.
"Through these types of partnerships, we will drive the ubiquity we need," Key said.
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http://technology.guardian.co.uk/wee...065091,00.html
Quote:
Microsoft pits its Silverlight against all Adobe's Flash
Jack Schofield
Thursday April 26, 2007
The Guardian
The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday May 8 2007
Silverlight is the new name for Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (WPF/E), not Windows Programming Foundation Everywhere as we said in error below. This has been corrected.
Microsoft is presenting Silverlight as a browser plug-in that can show high definition video on both PCs and Macs using VC-1, a version of Microsoft's WMV technology standardised for HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. But this is simply the thin end of a very ambitious wedge. It could also transform website development and enable a new generation of rich internet applications (RIAs) that work both online and on the desktop.
In many respects, Silverlight puts Microsoft on a collision course with Adobe, which has similar ambitions. Adobe's strategy is based on Flash and Apollo, a program in its infancy.
Silverlight enables programmers to deploy a desktop application on the web, as an RIA, using the same XML user interface code. Apollo is a run-time module that will enable programmers to run a web application (developed using Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript and Ajax) on the desktop. Which you choose depends on where you start and where you want to go. Users benefit either way.
But Silverlight is just the new name for WPF/E, or Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere. WPF is the new way of developing user interfaces in Windows Vista, and is supported in XP via the Net 3.0 Framework. WPF/E provides a way of deploying powerful Vista-style programs across a network via Internet Explorer, Firefox and Apple Safari browsers. These RIAs can be deployed on Linux servers, says Microsoft.
WPF also provides a better way for web designers and developers to work together. Instead of just producing artwork, designers can create real interfaces with buttons and other controls. The designer can then give the programmer the XML (or XAML) code for use in Microsoft's development system, Visual Studio.
To generate XAML from graphics, Microsoft has launched its own range of creative tools in the Expression Suite, based on its takeover of a Hong Kong software developer, Creature House, in 2003.
Adobe owns the creative market with PhotoShop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver etc, the way Microsoft owns the business desktop with Office. But Microsoft hopes to get a toehold by offering a more powerful way of working and by leveraging its Windows-based programming system.
The move to WPF and XAML should benefit the Windows programming world, especially inside large companies with intranets. Whether it will be adopted elsewhere is open to considerable doubt. But it could nonetheless put Adobe under added pressure, especially if it's forced to reduce its high prices.
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26-06-2007, 03:53 PM
It's Microsoft again...
Linear Mode
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