The Silverlight Strategy, this will be a great movie

Posted by miguelcarrasco in Thursday, February 7th 2008

Topics: Software Development, Web Development, Web/Tech

Bill Gates

Have you seen Pirates of Silicon Valley? I love this movie. It’s basically a docudrama that was made to show the rivalry that existed between Apple and Microsoft (Micro-Soft at the time). During the movie you get a glimpse into what transpired in the 80′s and 90′s, that brought us the rise of the personal computer, and created the software development machine that is Microsoft. It’s a cool movie, although my wife would not agree.

Looking at the landscape today, you see a world that has 98% (90% to 98%, depending on what you read, point being, domination) of the machines that access the Internet Windows (Microsoft) based.

How did this happen? Was Microsoft first? Did they have the best platform? Nay Nay to both.

This all happened before in the land before the web

This story is a story about Silverlight, and how what you are about to see with Silverlight, happened already.

I remember back in the day when Bill Gates and crew were busy working on MS-DOS, and Steve Jobs shows up with his Apple. Bill Gates was furious that nobody wanted to talk about the PC, and everyone wanted the Apple. So easy to use, such a nice graphical user interface. Heck I would have been all over Apple myself!

Picture a Pontiac Sunfire showing up to a party, only to realize its surrounded by beautiful, hand crafted Aston Martins. Apple looked unbeatable. Their passion for beautiful operating systems and beautiful machines was unmatched. How on earth could Microsoft get attention back on them?

Without going to much into history, Bill Gates became obsessed with creating a better graphical user interface. The significant difference was Bill Gates and crew did not focus on creating just a beautiful experience, they focused on creating an operating system that would allow developers to easily create applications for their platform. This is a key point. This mindset literally changed our lives today!

Apple vs. Microsoft Microsoft loved what Apple did, and tried to copy it. They did an ok job, but Vista is no OSX, Bill Gates would even agree. Apple and Jobs would rant and scream, probably to this day that Microsoft has “No Sense of Style!” (akin to Flash and Adobe posts everywhere slamming Expression Studio and Silverlight), but Microsoft didn’t care because that wasn’t their game. Heck, they were probably happy at all the attention Apple put on making things beautiful, all the while completely ignoring the bigger issues of software development lifecycles, deployment, architecture, and scalability.

What Microsoft did very well, way better than Apple, was form partnerships with developers, ISV’s, and made it easy for companies to develop software for their operating system through fantastic software development tools.

Developers by the Masses

They made genius innovations like the DLL. The DLL allowed developers to create tools that could configure themselves dynamically. They were later extremely smart in looking into the work of Alan Cooper, who would later help Microsoft create Visual Basic, the first GUI form designer and editing tool ever created for Microsoft Windows. They even allowed, and heavily promoted third party applications to be built to develop Microsoft applications.

Before Visual Basic, it was very hard to create graphical user interface applications. Some could do it, but it was a very difficult and intense process. You would have to be an expert in a large amount of technologies and programming languages to get things to work just right.

By creating tools for creating windows applications, and creating these tools to work extremely well, Microsoft started drawing large numbers of developers flocking to their development tools. Why would any developer want to spend time doing things, that with Visual Basic, you could do in a matter of seconds.

Web 2.0 Today

The web has been around forever in tech terms. But nothing really revolutionary has gone on, besides marketing getting a hold of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and calling it AJAX. HTML, CSS, the DOM has been around since forever as far as we web is concerned. Where is the real revolutionary leap? I mean, sure, you have a ton of Web 2.0 companies coming online, everyone and their dogs are doing start-ups these days, but it’s hard to get everything to work together. Things are coined “AJAX” and “Web 2.0″, but really, all these technologies are old!

Nobody has really stepped up to the plate and taken a total dominating stance on the web. Google is pushing applications to the web to “compete” with Microsoft, but has anyone really tried to compete with them? Is everyone missing the boat completely?

Why hasn’t Google created development tools to develop “Google” applications? Why hasn’t Facebook? Why haven’t any of the so called visionary companies out there created a real viable platform for building web applications? Some of you are thinking they have. Nay Nay they definitely have not. They have all created API’s and very simple Wiki documentation surrounding their API’s. Sure the concept of Mashups, XML standards, Web Services is becoming mainstream, but has anyone really taken the time to BUILD the development tools that are needed to build Web 2.0 applications? Has anyone taken the time, or the ridiculous amounts of money they have, to build a platform on which future web applications can be built?

Microsoft missed the boat on Web 2.0, and the Web in general, and are currently way behind on the advertising side of things, but they have a plan, believe me, and it’s deeper than people think. What kills me (and almost makes me laugh), is that they have done it before, and nobody seems to see it coming!

Why Microsoft Will Win, and Dominate the Web

Silverlight

You can bash Microsoft all you want, I personally hate the Zune (But the new version is pretty awesome, so I might have to retract that statement soon), but Visual Studio is by far the most impressive development platform end to end, ever created.

Building a “Web 2.0″ application today involves having great designers, php script kiddies, JavaScript guru’s, and mysql database designers and admins working for you. Everyone is working in different toolset’s, and it’s very hard to get everything to work just right. Sure you have AJAX, but it’s really just a packaging of scripting technologies, that work fairly slow and clunky in comparison to standard windows applications.

Enter Microsoft. With the introduction of Silverlight, they are bringing over 20 years of experience building visual, interactive business and shrink wrapped applications, to the web. That is amazingly powerful. You simply can’t discount this. It’s so powerful in fact that speaking with Flex developers recently, they even drooled at the things they could conceivably do with a .net/Flash interactive package. I mean, have you tried building really rich data driven, interactive, cross domain, scalable applications in Flash/Flex? It’s horrid, if not next to impossible.

Is Silverlight a Flash killer? No. Is it intended to be? Nope. It’s much more than that. Will you still see flash animations on sites? Absolutely. But, will you see real applications on the web, built in “AJAX”/Flash? Nope, they will be built using Silverlight. Dare I say, you might someday see Flash running on top of Silverlight! Why not?

It’s like Chess really…

Check Mate

And now, maybe you start to get it. Roy Ozzie gets it, Steve Ballmer gets it, and Bill Gates is retiring and not even worried about it. He’s onto bigger more important things. Like in chess, the other side played its game, which I would equate to repetitive wins using Scholars Mate. Everyone else looked at how easy it was to execute the scholars mate, and just copied it. Microsoft has a deep playbook, and they are ready to launch their attack, and its not just a one or two piece play, it’s the entire board. Trust me when I say with conviction that Microsoft has an army of .net developers ready to execute one of the most awesome plays you have ever seen, and it ends with developers everywhere winning. As a consequence, Microsoft wins. The problem with playing a scholars mate, is you are left in such a bad situation, that the end game is not just a win by the other side (Microsoft), but a clear destruction of the opponent, to the tone of 98% market share…

The bottom line is simple.

If you want to win in software, make it easy for people to build applications for your product by:

a) providing a platform on which fantastic applications can be built.

b) provide the best development toolset’s you can for your platform.

This is what Microsoft did with Visual Basic for the windows platform, and are now about to do with the Web.

And nobody is going to see it coming.

People within Microsoft, like Scott Guthrie and John Bristowe see it coming, but mostly everyone else is in denial. I’m looking forward to renting Pirates of Silicon Valley 2.0 – Silverlight.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,WPF,Software Development

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33 users responded to this post

Brent said in February 8th, 2008 at 11:18 am

98% of computers access the Internet Windows based? I think someone needs to get out of fantasy world and research some actual numbers. Apple’s market share is at 7.57% and growing.

Miguel Carrasco said in February 8th, 2008 at 11:56 am

Actually, a lot of people are buying Mac Hardware (correct), but running windows on top of it, and using Windows to access the net.

Recent statistics posted a few weeks ago which you can find all over the net if you want to verify the statistics, show the percentage sitting at about 98%. Apple does have about 8% market share for sure (not accessing internet however, but with OS Sales). Heck I want one, they build the best hardware! But I will have to run Windows on top of it, because everything I build and use runs on Windows. Web Sites also work better on Windows.

Look at the support for building applications on Windows, vs. Mac. Bottom line, Microsoft built a better OS for developing applications on, and have a deep channel now of developers, and partners.

You will see a lot more Mac Hardware out there for sure, but OSX running everwhere without Windows, is a far ways away…

Brent said in February 8th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

I’m actually not going to argue with your numbers anymore. I think you will find if you verify a few more sources (such as http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8 which measures precisely what you are talking about) that the Windows browser marketshare is actually around 91% and gradually falling proportionately with Mac OS X gain.

That’s beside the point though as the post as a whole is sensationalist at best. Statements like: “I mean, have you tried building really rich data driven, interactive, cross domain, scalable applications in Flash/Flex? It’s horrid, if not next to impossible.” are not only not backed up but they are largely unfounded. Flex is an amazing platform for developing this kind of application and based on the performance issues I’ve experienced with Silverlight, Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do. I implore you to use Flex Builder 3 for more than a week to write something more than a trivial application and tell me that you come to the same conclusion.

I develop in .NET for my day job but I don’t even consider it outside of work. What do I do outside of work? Flex, Ruby on Rails, and yes Mac OS X application development. I would love it to death if Microsoft provided even half of the application APIs (i.e. easy integration with iCal, Mail, Spotlight, etc.) that Apple provides. As it stands, they don’t. This is probably why the Windows shareware market and indy development market are completely dry and why they thrive on the Mac platform. (Look up Macheist, Mydreamapp, Maczot, Mupromo, to get a feel for the types of applications people develop on the Mac platform. You see NONE of this on Windows!)

Miguel Carrasco said in February 8th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

Sounds awesome! Keep up the awesome development efforts! I love Apple!

Hugo Zapata said in February 8th, 2008 at 5:12 pm

I won’t say Silverlight is bad/good, however what i really don´t like is the way that the Ms things are advertised. Always talking about “winning the web” , “domination” and all that stuff with the purpose of scaring away developers from others technologies.

Also one of the main problems with ajax/javascript development is named IE6 . So saying that web sites look better in windows its a little dangerous.

Sadly its easy for ms, to stop supporting a rival technology at any time, so we praise for good competition here.

Peter said in February 9th, 2008 at 9:52 am

I’ve posted a response here:

http://www.pseale.com/blog/SilverlightVersusMagicalFairylandSilverlight.aspx

John Verdinand said in February 9th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

Really like the article! I was thinking the exact same thing the other day when I was working on some php site mods. For the most part, there hasn`t been any new platforms or frameworks for the web in ages… HTTPDownloader that makes AJAX possible was Microsoft wasn`t it… and Web Services was really popularized by Microsoft as well…

I`m unsure as to why everyone else is freaking out about it, seems they missed the point of the article… Well done. By the way, I develop on Mac Hardware, but I run XP… Technorati favorite added.

Alan Avante said in February 10th, 2008 at 10:26 am

No offense, but this is a ridiculous article. Where is the proof of anything you state? You actually think programmers would rather code in XAML than Flash script?

Are you insane? IMO, neither Flash *nor* Silverlight are an answer to an interactive world. But if you’re going to write something, at least give a shred of proof to what you say.

Ridiculous pap. My IQ fell 10 points reading this.

Keith said in February 11th, 2008 at 6:50 am

This is quite a website…some nice articles here, many thanks for creating a truly great web resource, thanks!! Regards, Keith Johnson, Author “365 Great Affirmations”

mat said in February 11th, 2008 at 8:51 am

I have to agree with you. I’ve been studying Flex for over a year, have read 3 books on building data applications with it, and have been horrified. Flex has terrible data creation tools.

Flex brings me back to the days of VB 3 – it takes an immense amount of work to build just a simple data front end, with basic update features. And forget about making a master-detail app! A form that would take me 1 hour to make in MS Access or Borland Delphi would take 2-3 days in Flex. This is not exagerration – read “Flexible Rails” or “Flex 2: Training from the Source” to see just how bad Flex is.

Google does have its GWT, but it’s also not built for data apps. Very very disappointing. Most of the rest of the Ajax frameworks are the same, except perhaps EXT JS. They have a limited concept of databinding, but still barely at the VB 3 level.

Microsoft will destroy Flex/AIR and Ajax if Silverlight allows you to make complex db frontends easily, like you can in Access or Delphi. MS will dominate, and it won’t be close. Adobe had their chance, but they have no one on their team who understands real data front ends. It’s sad.

As for Google, they should buy what’s left of Borland and the genius guys building the VCL, and tell them: build a Flex or Ajax framework that is as powerful and easy as Access/Delphi. Also build a RAD IDE based on Eclipse. Google has the money, but doesn’t understand developers. If they don’t do this, MS will wrap up the real business developers.

I give this to MS (and Borland): they do know what regular line of business programmers need – fast RAD tools to build complex db front ends. Ajax and Flex aren’t even close.

straffi said in February 11th, 2008 at 10:33 am

I like this article.

Look at those folks still do not know how MS is bleeding the edge.
(@Brent: 98% … Apple at 7.5%…)
Who cares? MS did it again.

Think about all the great technologies like (-insert your favourite buzzword her-). MS do not take a chance – they wait and take it over.

I am not Mr. MS-Lover but the ease of accessing the OS has evolved so much with every .NET-Version.

Please yourself, but dont blame a blooded programer for enjoing the great experience given by the .NET-Framework.

Mfg:
straffi

“Properly read, the bibel is the most potent force for atheism ether conceived.”

Peter Brown said in February 11th, 2008 at 12:11 pm

You really need to check your facts. I am an “oldtimer” in desktop application developement. I first started in the late 70′s. Dynamic Link Libraries existed long before Microsoft. I was using them on my old Osborne CP/M machine. What microsoft did was to incorporate DLL’s into their operating system. In the old days you would have to handle the loading of libraries in your code and you would also have to define your access points. What Microsoft did was an improvement but hardly revolutionary.

Mr. Koolaid said in February 11th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Silverlight is already dead, nothing to see here, move on …

Justin said in February 12th, 2008 at 10:59 am

I hope this blogger has all your email address’s and keeps your posts on this topic, so you can eat your own words when what he talks about, happens… Everyone seems to love hating Microsoft because they are ontop, and are smart at incorporating technologies, people have freedom of choice… nobody is forcing you to use their stuff…

In fact I find it funny that everyone is doing exactly what he is saying… hating microsoft, saying they dont do anything well, Silverlight is junk… and yet, it is going to be a huge hit…

Ravanesh said in February 12th, 2008 at 2:07 pm

While lots of information with Silverlight is press and media, I think it a great thing Microsoft has done. It is truely the first RAD with DB for web. I am very excited, hoping Microsoft does not drop this product.

Nathanael said in February 17th, 2008 at 3:29 am

Yes, Silverlight will be a huge hit, especially since it is now default installed from the M$ windows update site LOL!

M$ is very good at being a mega huge corporation, but they aren’t on top when it comes to best software! Just because you kill all your competition (e.g. buying spyglass mosaic, changing it to internet explorer, making it “vital” to the windows OS in order to kill netscape) by locking customers in and persuading third party software makers that developing for anything else is a waste of time and money, causing many pc users to not even notice your competition , doesn’t mean your software is the best! Saying M$ is “better” is just like saying the colonists who made their livings by stealing from the natives are “better” than their victims!

Apple is getting wise to the tactics of M$ (finally) and by getting the attention of the masses with the success of the ipod they are slowly taking small amounts of market share from M$, making it more worthwhile for third party developers to pay attention to apple.

Without third party support in the commercial OS markets, apple will fail, Jobs knows this and is brilliantly working to direct more attention.

As for DLLs they are widely known to be inefficient and very prone to errors and viruses (just look up dll hell in google, try not to use MSN lol!!). M$ knows this which is why they would love to get rid of the way dlls are used altogether but that would hurt the large amount of older software that needs OS backward compatibility.

I personally don’t see the argument that silverlight is somehow better than flash just because microsoft is making it!

BTW I don’t like apple either, too proprietary so this post has been written in Ubuntu Linux =p

Tom Van den Eynde said in May 4th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

“I mean, have you tried building really rich data driven, interactive, cross domain, scalable applications in Flash/Flex? It’s horrid, if not next to impossible.”

It’s clear that you have never built a decent Flex applications. Because in that case you would know that building scalable applications with a Flex front end has nothing to do with Flex itself. Sorry – you’ll have to do better in order to promote Silverlight.

How much were you paid for writing this ???

Scott Barnes said in May 4th, 2008 at 9:35 pm

Interesting read. I wonder if they do make a movie on Silverlight what role I may play in such movie or the real question is, whom would Forest Key & Scott Guthrie be played as?

I’ve been with Flex since it’s birth, I also have been with Silverlight since it’s birth. The two have a lot of positives and negatives associated to them and either isn’t perfect. Some prefer Flex, others prefer Silverlight. Right now on our Silverlight.NET forums we have over 20,000 folks registered and listening to what Silverlight has to offer (Flexcoders has around 9,000+).

That’s a lot of folks paying attention, and that’s the important thing of all. It’s a technology that has interest and folks passionately behind it, and it’s not going to go away anytime soon. Adobe is very competitive and the two of us (Microsoft) and Adobe will co-exist, that much is assured.

That being said, tell me or others within our team of any imperfections you see, as the more evidence we get around features that you’d like to see, the better the platform and the entire ecosystem we’re building will be.

-
Scott Barnes
Product Manager
Microsoft.

Yaro said in May 11th, 2009 at 4:15 pm

Microsoft won't win or dominate the web. Maybe the Windouches didn't notice when they wrote this article but the Windows monopoly is starting to slip. Windows Vista/7 are pretty good demonstrations on how Microsoft is NOT going to have its monopoly last another decade. Hell, Silverlight isn't even taking over, 15 months after this article was written. NOBODY but Microsoft uses it! There was a brief moment for Obama's inauguration, where like… two sites covered it in Silverlight but Flash did the other nine gazillion streams.

Microsoft's time to shine has come and is starting to go. Linux is slowly eroding it on the desktop alongside Mac OS X.

And nobody except Microsoft shills take Silverlight seriously. Trust me.

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Awesome geek said in March 7th, 2010 at 11:20 pm

the only time I have seen silverlight used outside of microsoft.com was ctvolympics.com and they were probably paid to do so because then people would be forced to download it in order to watch videos on the olympics