The Next Net Battle - Adobe vs Microsoft

This post has been sitting in my moleskine for sometime fermenting and I figure since I just missed the boat from the A-List coverage of MIX early in the week I may as put it out there. These notes go back to my post in October 2006 called “Why Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are NOT Competing“. Since then I have been thinking over the ever changing paradigm of technology as a business and how these major companies are competing. With the releases of Adobe’s Apollo and Microsoft’s Silverlight (back then it was called WPF/E), it struck me: the next battle will be between Adobe and Microsoft.

I stand by my conclusions of my aforementioned posts - even if you comeback with Google Office competing with Microsoft’s traditional cash cow - MS Office. No, there is not competition between these products. Both are and will serve different audiences. Will Google Office cannabalize some of Microsoft’s Office Revenue? Yes. Will it be enough to affect the bottom line? No.

That being said, why Adobe vs Microsoft? And furthermore, why do I think Microsoft will win?

As the next generations of the web are being developed on the basis of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and Software as a Service models with the addition of varying, diverse media types such as audio, video and text - the company who can best embrace and enable this will become victorious.

If you envision the entire life cycle of a web application or an RIA it starts at conception and design, followed by development and deployment. Now as this workflow has progressed and been perfected over the years so have the tools…

Adobe
Photoshop -> Dreamweaver -> Flex -> Flash -> Apollo

Microsoft
Expression Studio -> Visual Studio -> ASP.Net -> Silverlight

Both companies are coming close to perfecting the workflow from concept to implementation. Granted you are not controlling the information like Google - but do control how its designed, developed, deployed, and what platform it will run on. The key for these to companies is platform - which will be provide the platform for the next generation of web development?

So why will Microsoft win? Easy. ASP.Net is far, far, far, far superior to Flex. Silverlight will trump flash - I don’t care about the numbers of people with flash already installed either. Silverlight will come prepackaged in Vista and in five years those numbers will mean nothing. Also the release of Silverlight has given power to the millions of .NET developers out there to create rich, engaging applications with the same ease as they are used to.

Oh and don’t forget about the inherent compatibility with the infrastructure that an .NET application lies on (WPF, Windows Server, SQL Server).

Some people agree with me… Scoble says Microsoft may have just “rebooted the web”. Mike Arrington says Silverlight Is Important.

More on the battle in upcoming posts, as well as much more on Silverlight. Also upcoming - why Astoria will be amazing and the Web 3.0 platform; and why Jasper will show the Rails crowd that we can do it too - only better, more scalable, and faster. And naturally more analysis from the rest of the great stuff that came from MIX07.

It’s safe to say this is a great time to be a Microsoft Web Developer.

Published By:

Andy

Disney's Vista Gadget Points To Future Of Marketing Widgets

All the buzz here at Microsoft MIX in Vegas is rightly about Silverlight, but one other impressive demo I came across was a Vista gadget (a.k.a. widget) for Disney. Entertainment and Devices Division President Robbie Bach was on the main stage yesterday, talking about marketing Microsoft's connected entertainment services. One of the case studies wheeled out was Disney, which - as The Seattle Times reports - is working with Microsoft and large OEMs selling computers in China to install a software gadget on new PC desktops. The gadget features content meant to attract people to the company's Hong Kong theme park. Bach pointed out that Vista's gadgets (mini web apps that run on your desktop) are a way for brands such as Disney to establish a presence on "some of the most valuable real estate in the home" - i.e. the PC desktop. The Seattle Times goes on:

"The Disney gadget is aimed at an emerging Chinese middle class that does not have the history with the Disney brand that Americans do, said Edward Kummer, a Disney executive in charge of online promotions of the company's parks and resorts.

The gadget is constantly being updated via RSS feeds with news about the theme park and also includes long-format video, itinerary planning tools and other interactive content.

"This is effectively having a Disney application on the PC," Bach said.

No details were provided about the size of the application, the computing resources it uses or whether consumers could remove these branded gadgets."

There is a video of the Disney talk during Bach's presentation, up on the Visit MIX07 site. I've taken a few (rough) screenshots of the Disney gadget from the video, because I think its interactivity and rich real-time data (including video) is a great example of how widgets/gadgets will evolve over the next couple of years. I also expect this kind of interactivity and multimedia in widgets that run in the browser (e.g. Microsoft's own live.com widget platform).

Note that I haven't yet seen the Disney gadget on the Web, so if anyone has a link to it -- please note in the comments.

Published by:

Read/Write web

Silverlight, yet to see the perfection of it…

I am sitting here catching up on things. This weather around the STL kills me at this time of the year. Enough about me, more about Silverlight right? Well maybe.

Now what I’m reading by two of the top bloggers or most reputable bloggers out there today, Michael Arrington and Robert Scoble, is that we all had better pay attention to Silverlight. Ok, I’ll agree, from some of the excited overview of it, it sounds like a great 4 mb application that makes AJAX look like a bicycle and Silverlight the Ferrari.

That is really cool, you have me hooked. Now I jump over to the ex-Microsoft VP’s site. I have to see what he is saying about it. First off, he didn’t get a free pass to the MIX event, and secondly he plays both sides of the fence in his post.

As always, I casually see what people are saying. As you know, no matter how hard someone shoves down a new process, software, OS, etc… it’s the people that are going to bite or spit. Well right now the people are spitting. In fact, one of the more prominent comments under Scoble’s post goes like this

Microsoft rebooted the web? Why, did they crash it? Sorry, couldn’t resist.

What I’m not sorry about is that I don’t trust Microsoft. I don’t trust Ballmer. I don’t trust Gates. I don’t believe that the old Microsoft - the one that lied, cheated, and stole its way into becoming a monopoly has turned over a new leaf.

Ouch! But it gets even better, as I scrolled down further to find more Mac and Linux comments. Then the very last comment, I thought I would get to see something. There was a comment by Michael S. Scherotter who has a web site that he used to learn Silverlight on. He is a Microsoft employee.

So here I am. All excited to finally see this hype. Then it all became really clear. Just go there yourself - http://xmldocs.net/ - I’m sure you will be jumping up and down all over for this Silverlight exhibition.

Technically Speaking, if you are going to post a comment and link your web site. Then go on about “how I work at Microsoft, and how I made this web site to test it“, just make sure the thing works.

Black on White is not impressing me. Not one bit. I’m currently siding with the Linux and Mac people at this time. Remember, I’m from the STL, you have to show me. Please don’t mistake that with SHOE ME; that is north of here in Wisconsin!

Published By:

Techn ically Speaking