Year: 2007

Disappointing Silverlight release schedule

colinizer Microsoft, mix07, Silverlight

Today – April 30 2007

  • 1.0 Beta
  • Silverlight Streaming Beta service
  • 1.1 Alpha
  • Full Expression suite 1.0 (leaving software developers in the dust with 6+ months waiting for Visual Studio Orcas)
  • Expression Blend 2.0 preview

‘Summer 2007’

  • 1.0 Release

Undisclosed timeframe

  • 1.1 Release
  • 1.1 Tools for Visual Studio – tied to Visual Studio Orcas release
  • Mobile device support – which could be a real flash killer

That’s a long time to wait to be able to use this technology. Will there be a Go Live license for this stuff?

Silverlight will become Silverheavy

colinizer Microsoft, mix07, Silverlight

The current silverlight 1.0 beta is about 1.38MB (not the 1MB spoken about by Microsoft).

The 1.1 alpha (which includes a subset of .NET) is 4.24MB!

That’s not big for broadband but let’s not be arrogant and assume everyone has that yet.

In terms of competing with Flash, which it does – no doubt – the issue is really about ease of installation. Flash was first installed on systems with Windows 95/98 were everyone has administrator rights. Installation on Vista will be blocked without administration rights which are not granted by default (even to administrators which must temporarily elevate their rights).

Note that Scott Guthrie demonstrationed is ~20 second install on XP SP2, not Vista with it’s “Cancel or Allow” guardian.

Some people may have forgotton that Click Once gives a web distrbution model for full .NET application and the .NET user Controls can already be hosted in IE.

Microsoft must use Windows/Microsoft Update to push through this technology if they want to see rapid adoption, or a good set of compelling applications – is Major League Baseball (a demo at Mix) really that popular with the rest of the world?

Silverlight = Windows in a browser

colinizer Desktop Application, Graphic Design, Microsoft, mix07, Silverlight, Web Application

If you are feeling the heat from other platforms, what do you do?

You put your rich experience into many browsers, so that HTML compatibility is no longer an issue, and neither is a different operating system.

Silverlight 1.0 beta has a subset of Windows Presentation Foundation. 1.1 alpha (a 4.25MB download) has a subset of the .NET framework (a 4.24MB download for the alpha).

This brings the rich smart (and the whole developer infrastructure behind it – once the tools come out) right across the board in terms of platforms.

Microsoft leaving software developers behind at Mix07

colinizer Graphic Design, Microsoft, mix07, Silverlight, Web Application

Microsoft today announced the release of the Expression tools suite. These tools including XAML and Silverlight support.

XAML support is not due to be released for about 6+ months in Visual Studio Orcas. Silverlight inclusion of .NET (‘announced’ today) has no timeframe, and Silverlight support in VS requires Orcas; same problem.

If you’re a software developer you have no supported tools for doing cool web stuff. If you are a graphic/web designer you now have some cool stuff.

Perhaps the mantra should now be “Designers, designers, designers”

Silverlight announcements at Mix07

colinizer Microsoft, mix07, Silverlight

1: Silverlight re-announcement (microsoft.com/silverlight)
2: It now comes with a .NET redistributable (that it’s in alpha – groan!)
3: Silverlight Streaming – A free hosting/streaming service for people to delivering Silverlight solutions

The good news, Microsoft Expression (microsoft.com/expression) is also now released (except the Media Encoder I believe)

The bad news, is that while there’s a Silverlight kit for Visual Studio, it’s for VS Orcas which is still in beta.

UPDATE: See my updates with the Mix07 for various updates and comments.

Trying to get in the Mix07

colinizer Microsoft, mix07

So the Microsoft Mix07 keynotes start in 2 hours at 12:30ET. I’d love for them to do a developer conference on the East coast – albeit jet-lagged.

Unfortunately, sitting here in the Eastern time zone, it’s not clear if there will be a live webcast for the keynotes. There’s no indication of it on the site at visitmix.com. The sessions section currently hosts Mix07 content. All I’ve seen in the Channel9/On10 crew and their boss with guests saying they are going to be uploading a ton of stuff everywhere with a mention of 10:30PT for some stuff going up today and Tuesday afternoon for some other stuff – all too late for the keynote.