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[ In Focus ] |
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Microsoft takes aim at Adobe
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by Wayne Cole
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From the earliest days of the Web, Macromedia Flash and Director (now a part of Adobe) provided cross-platform animation in Web pages. By offering a free player that operated in the most popular Web browsers and downloaded and installed automatically when a Flash-enabled page was accessed, the Flash player is now on more than 97 percent of the Internet connected computers worldwide.
During this same timeframe, it became clear that Microsoft entered into a technology development effort with the intention of completely dominating it. It also appeared that the Internet was one of its primary targets. Browsers, Java, JavaScript, Web servers etc. have all felt the "shock and awe" of the software megalith's attack. And with the release of its Silverlight technology products, Microsoft has put Adobe's Flash squarely in its crosshairs.
Familiar Territory
Like Flash, Silverlight's job is to deliver a rich media experience to users over the Web. With a standard Web browser, the Silverlight plug-in provides an interface to applications that include vector-based graphics, media, text, animation, and overlays. It uses resources on the Windows or Mac client machines to provide the horsepower necessary to execute such compute-intensive "experiences" on the user's desktop.
Also like Flash, Web sites can be coded so that machines without the Silverlight plug-in can be commanded to download and install it whenever Silverlight enabled page has been accessed. (Linux users will need to use Microsoft's Moonlight player to access Silverlight content.) Naturally, this rich media experience is built on Windows Media and DirectX technology.
Key elements of Microsoft's Internet focus are e-commerce and enterprise applications. Therefore, its development tools will support creation of two-way communication components to facilitate almost any transaction you can embed in a Web page. In fact, like Flash, you will be able to develop entire Web sites which are nothing more than interactive "clips" that play entirely in the "native" plug-in.
Microsoft has lined up partners in a number of different areas so that Silverlight can get a running start. These not only includes companion product developers like Rhozet, Sonic Solutions, and Telestream, but also Internet service providers who will have Silverlight site development and hosting services to suit users from individuals to large enterprises. A number of service providers for government and military have already committed to Silverlight as their choice for rich media delivery services, products, and systems.
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| Microsoft's Silverlight is designed to deliver rich media to users over the Web, produced with a family of development tools called Expression. |
Under Development
The Silverlight development tools have been grouped into a family of products called Expression. There are currently four separate applications and one bundle in this family. Expression Web is designed for creation of "CSS-based XHMTL 1.0 Transitional Conforming Web-sites" and will retail for $299.
Expression Blend provides graphic designers with tools to build glitzy interfaces using not only custom design elements, but also standard Windows interface controls and components. It can even load Visual Studio projects so that graphic designers can replace or enhance user interfaces built by the software developer. (This will put an end to "developer art" in software interfaces, according to Microsoft.) It will also eventually allow creation of complete desktop applications within Blend.
Expression Design provides tools for artists to created Silverlight compatible vector graphics, and may eventually be pitted directly against the venerable Adobe Illustrator independent of rich media Web content production. Design also supports collaborative development with Blend users. Artwork can be transferred between the two packages by means of XAML, an XML based application user interface description that can exist independent of the underlying application. Expression Design, while listed as a separate tool, appears to be available only in the Expression Studio bundle at this time.
Express Media is a combination digital asset management tool and encoder. The DAM tool allows the user to locate, organize, and annotate digital media, while the encoder is supposed to allow hundreds of diverse media formats to be encoded into VC-1 "wrapped in a Silverlight experience." Expression Media lists for $299.
Expression Studio bundles Expression Web, Blend, Design and Media into a single package for $599. There are free trial downloads available for all these products at the Microsoft Web site. Also available are a separate trial version of Expression Encoder and a free Expression Reader that allows non-Expression enabled clients to view Expression Media catalogs.
Is This Progress?
Expression contains Microsoft's competitors to Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Cold Fusion, and Flash CS3 Professional. There appears to be no revolutionary technical innovation or progress toward "Internet 2.0." Silverlight's main purpose seems to be satisfaction of Microsoft's desire to crush any other company's successful Web development products.
Microsoft's marketing implication that complexity equals power will win over many less technically inclined IT managers. Because the toolset appears more numerous and expansive than Flash and Adobe's Creative Suite 3 Web, those managers will feel Expression Studio is a "must have" for developing their newer, flashier, higher bandwidth Web sites.
Many technically savvy developers who understand the equivalence of Silverlight and Flash will adopt Silverlight simply because it is new or because they feel it will eventually replace FrontPage. (Expression Studio is available at upgrade pricing for FrontPage owners.) With the demise of browser competition and the rise of Windows Server, the compatibility fear factor will also bring many Flash developers over to Silverlight.
For content producers, this is no real progress at all. It simply means there is one more format we will have to accommodate with our content production tools.
Wayne M. Cole, CCV, CLVI, and member of the AGCV Board of Advisors, is also the owner of IHP, a video production company located Santa Barbara, CA. Contact him at wcole@ihpweb.com.
MORE INFO
Microsoft microsoft.com/expression</a rhozetrhozet.com
Sonic Solutions sonic.com
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