Remember Internet Explorer for Unix:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_UNIX

And also Internet Explorer for Mac, the ones they brought out when they were competing with Netscape, that they later stopped updating and dumped once they'd snuffed the competition?

So now we have another cross platform thing, that will be dumped on the market at a huge loss to try to snuff out the competition, and if they ever succeed the non Windows versions will no doubt end up the same way Internet Explorer for Solaris did.

Interesting point from Andrew, which I think in this case is just as well applied to Silverlight.

Silverlight, just like Flex, is not tied into the Microsoft stack and will run just as happily with LAMP, CF etc on the backend.

However unlike Flex, the Silverlight programming model is also neutral, supporting multiple programming options, C#, VB, Javascript, Python, Ruby etc to name but a few.

This gives the developer the broadest freedom, rich experience in the browser and total freedom of choice in terms of both backend support and development language for the application.

Of course just like Flex all this application/developer goodness depends on a plug-in for the browser, Silverlight.

Jon Harris, User Experience Evangelist, Microsoft UK

I can just see it now....

2007 was THE year for Java/Flash/Browser vulnerabilities.

2008 will be THE year for Silverlight vulnerabilities.

The IT Tech's job has just become much harder.

What could M$ possibly offer over Flash et al?

Not much - oh, except ASP integration. Wow. <yawn>

Can someone tell M$ that the bigger you make the product, the higher the possibility of vulnerabilities. Please?

Given their track record with WGA and WIndows Firewall, I can't see Silverlight being THE kicka$$ product they want it to be.

Also, saying that Adobe is lock-in - that's true however, what do you call ASP integration? A feature? No. A proprietary standard.

I'm sorry, Silverlight looks dim to me. 0 stars.

</vent>

@Microsoft dude:

Why are you talking in the present tense?

Flex is light years ahead of Silverlight, maybe in a few years time there would be some reason to develop using SL, and I appreciate you need to spout all the nonsense hype to actually make that happen, but be honest: Right now Flex is the only choice in the RIA space for the serious developer.

I should have made it clearer I was talking about the same version of Silverlight as the article, v1.1.

So no 'hype', just clearing up some 'FUD' ;)

I actually agree with you, the RIA side of the Silverlight gets interesting when Silverlight 1.1 releases next year, not before.

Cheers

Jon Harris, User Experience Evangelist, Microsoft UK

Okay, I see now. You're clearing up the FUD caused by the response from Adobe to the assertion that the Flex developer community is 1/20th the size of the ASP.NET developer community (e.g. the back end technology)... the response which points out that Flex is not tied to a back-end server technology which means that there are actually millions of potential developers who can implement the heavy lifting work on the back-end of a RIA?

Well, may I reply to clear up some further FUD caused by the assertion that Silverlight is not tied to a single front end language. I assume you were unaware that there is already a Winforms implementation for Flash (and Silverlight) which lets developers code the front end of RIA applications in C# using the Winforms API?

I suppose you could argue that Adobe should support the Microsoft languages out of the box and not rely on third parties to provide support, but that would be like Microsoft implementing AS3 support in Silverlight.... not gonna happen.