Friday, May 25, 2007

Silverlight vs Flash : Mixed Emotions

The number of commentators posting about Silverlight has naturally fallen off since it's announcement. But the quality of the comments has improved a lot since the heady days of MIX. Chris Duckett posted a commentary today that has some quotes that really hit home for me:

"Even though you can view Silverlight on OS X, you will have no chance of being able to author Silverlight content without a Windows licence. This is a conscious decision. On one hand, Microsoft wants to get designers using their Expression toolset yet designers will have to come across to the Windows platform in order to do it. It may not be such a large hurdle but it is a hurdle nevertheless. Ever tried to force an OS X user onto Windows? They cry, they scream and they want their (at times) consistent GUI back."

"Therefore what is left? We have a video platform held back by a lack of distribution issues, an enforced lock-in for the tools and a lack of true cross-platformness. When it is put that way, it begins to sound an awful lot like Microsoft's previous video strategy with Windows Media."

For those interested I am still adding to the Silverlight vs Flash post list I started a while back. So if you want to catch up or review the comments so far that may be a good place to start.

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