Microsoft nails Silverlight's future to Windows Phones Microsoft is making it easier to write Silverlight apps for Windows Phones. In the first half of 2011, Microsoft will deliver the Portable Library Project, which lets Silverlight programmers deploy apps for as many different types of devices as possible. It was released as a preview on Thursday. The idea is to offer a single …
Christ - escaping Microsoft has all the appeal of being a cat stuck inside a microwave turned on low...
I don't care if Microsoft puts Silver Light on my toilet paper - I ain't gonna use it and will do everything I can to get rid of it....
MS's vertical integration, product lock in, licensing, DRM-ing, hidden files that do secret things like SPYING on users, crappy buggy software, customer support by script monkeys....
And repacking software - in the most dumbest way possible and calling that an upgrade.... all in the name of updating - milking the dumb cash cows...
A phone has a tiny screen, touch, but no mouse or keyboard, and limited horsepower.
A PC has at least one large screen, no touch, but a mouse and keyboard and vastly greater welly.
I have trouble even imaging something I'd want to do on both platforms, beyond listening to music, and cannot for the life of me imagine that the appropriate *interface* to that app might be the same on such vastly different hardware.
Cross-platform to let me run on any phone (even the iPhone): that makes sense.
Cross-platform to let me run on PCs, Macs and Linux boxen: that makes sense.
Cross-platform to let me run on devices and desktops: who ordered that?
Of course, if this is just a fig leaf for the gradual cancellation of Silverlight, the strategy makes sense. (I hope Canonical and the moonlight devs aren't too upset about that.)
This just came up:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/30/rip-silverlight-on-the-web/
Microsoft Has Seen The Light. And It’s Not Silverlight.
MG Siegler
Nearly a year ago, Microsoft pulled together a group of reporters for Bing Fall Release event. The highlight of the presentation was a demo showing off some nifty new features in Bing Maps. The problem? All of this stuff required Microsoft’s Silverlight browser plug-in to work. I berated the company for once again pushing users towards a more proprietary web.
Etc.
It always yanks my chain - that the Corporate MORON types at Microsoft do really nasty, greedy, product lock in antics....
This is not absolutely accurate - a bit of spin on it... but this is how Microsoft operates, and would have you operate - exclusively with all of their products on their operating systems - if it wasn't for the anti-trust and anti-racketeering fines....
In order to use the internet on MS's operating system - you need to:
1. Be using their browser, called Internet Explorer.
2. You need to be using their search engine called Bing (or is that Bung?)
3. In order to be able to "see the MS feature rich (advertising?) content on Microsofts internet browser, you need to install and run Microsoft's SILVERLIGHT.
I used to like porn - and some porn sites, but years ago the IDIOTS who ran many of them thought the best way to get people to like us and pay for out content was to write "pop up advertising scripts" to bung 20 or 30 or more adds up all over your screen......
And the only way to kill them off really was to shut down the browser - called Internet Explorer.
It pissed me off no end, and so I started to look at other options like Opera and Firefox and Netscape etc... and they all had or had gotten "POP UP BLOCKING" in their functions.
So I then complained to Microsoft - and they basically told me to go fuck myself by both ignoring me, doing nothing about it, AND worst of all, they too another 5 or 6 years - yes - you heard right; MICROSOFT took another FIVE or SIX YEARS to put pop up blocking into Internet Explorer - AFTER every other browser company had done it.
I have door to door sales men, knocking on my door 24 hours a day, seven days a week - and you won't give me ammunition to put in the gun so I can shoot them and keep them off my front lawn and out of my life?
HELLO? - is there anybody in there?
Trouble is that because MS has done such a fucking shitty job of everything - along with their NAZIFICATION of the web - people have just walked.
Better apps, better security, better tradeoffs of my time and viewing space and their advertising, and there is a multitude of really great NON PROPRIETARY or VICIOUSLY licensed software with vertical integration and product revenue stream LOCK IN...
Oh great - they just don't "get it".... so now they are rewriting Silverlight for the phone...
Ohhhh yes they DO NOT - because it's Fucking Microsoft SILVERLIGHT, on a Fucking Microsoft operating system, ON a fucking Microsoft mobile phone....
Now I can watch the soccer on my mobile with 3 mm high players kicking a pixel around...
Cool - I can hardly wait.
Ooops gotta get my Microsoft Licensed Batteries for my Microsoft Licensed Phone, along with the Microsoft Licensed Ear Plugs, Microsoft Licensed Extended Range Antenna, and the Microsoft Licensed Screen Wipes and Microsoft Licensed Pouch and the Microsoft Licensed Wrist Strap......
Now I have my Microsoft Licensed FREE TO AIR - DRM content management system, Microsoft Licensed PUBLIC BROAD CAST RADIO - DRM content management system, and Microsoft Licensed DRM Multi Media Management System -
Oooooop's Nearly forgot to install the Microsoft Licensed Software Security Advisor - containing a FIREWALL, a Anti-VIRAL Scanner, and DRM virus checker to make sure I am not using any unlicensed viruses on my system....
And all for only $999 on the student package, or $1299 on the home user package, or $1599 for the professional version, or $1799 for the small office version or $2000 for the enterprise version...
Thank fuck for Microsoft - my faith in humanity has been restored.....
So sorry if you invested a lot of time and money skilling up in this Silverlight thing. Bit of hard luck really. It seems Microsoft just now found this really cool new website where computer interactivity standards are developed, w3.org. Now they are shifting strategy to HTML5. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-our-strategy-with-silverlight-has-shifted/7834
This should make it easier to develop cross-platform apps and put some real content on more devices - even those new Windows Phone 7 ones nobody wants to develop for because they don't work like anything else with their XNA and Silverlight-light and whatnot. And it is all about the developers, honest! Developers! Developers! Developers!
So if you were one of the unlucky few to buy into the Silverlight thing with schools and books and toolchains and whatnot, so sorry. You should have seen the Internet coming. The future is Open. Now go buy the new Microsoft production lines, tools and services that deliver and interpret HTML5 in Microsoft's technically standards-adherent but inimicably patented charmingly quirky way. Be sure and sign up for the training programs too, because it's important to invest in your future.
Or if, you know, you're tired of riding around in circles on the train to crazytown, you could read up on this thing called "LAMP". It's been around for a while and I hear it's almost stable now.
The browser in Windows Phone 7 can't even do Silverlight (it doesn't understand Flash or even HTML5 either).
That means that no browser can do Silverlight. It's a lost cause.
Lack of APIs might explain why Windows Phone 7 can't Copy-&-Paste, can't use a phone's video camera or compass, and can't even access the contacts and calendar (PIM).
This amuses me for several reasons:
1) People following Microsoft's recommendations get pwned. Again. Industry standards prevail. It's of course pretty normal for Microsoft to try something that's a bad idea (making a Java competitor that is not cross platform for instance -- and no, Silverlight isn't since it was second class on Mac and non-functional on Linux -- I couldn't even run a rotating cubes demo -- let alone everything else Java runs on), then deprecate it shortly later. But for some reason it always comes as a shock each time it happens among the Microsoft-users I know.
2) That very non-portability is what bit Microsoft in the ass now... if they had designed it to *actually* be portable from the start, they wouldn't be where they are now, they'd have more than 3 APIs that aren't just thin wrappers over native OS functionality. I mean, Java phones don't have full Java, but it's a pretty hefty subset.
Kill a competitor (Flash) and lock yet more people in the MS OS/toolchain.
Looks like they will have to settle for HTML5.
As for those developers who *believed* them. You will joint c# and various other MS "This will be *awesome* and take over the world" (but actually doesn't) initiatives
Anyone like to have a go at listing some of those? Iron Ruby seems to have been the most recent.
Living proof that even if you commit to the MS "way" (their tools, their languages, their OSes) you can still get dumped in a ditch.
Can't MS come up with something new? Apple launches the iPod, MS years later comes up with Zune. Adobe has Flash. Years later, MS comes up with silverlight. The whole world had Java, but years later MS came up with J++
I am not a microsoft basher, but if they keep doing this, then they're a dead company. Lucky for them that Windows 7 did well, but let's hope Windows 8 will not become a new Vista or ME. As far as I can see, MS is way behind on good ideas. And the only strong point they still have is their windows desktop platform.
Sad to see the emperor crawling in the dust...
Nearly two months ago: http://forums.theregister.co.uk/post/855954
My post wasn't well received then. Maybe now?
Developers can invest in the Microsoft HTML tools now if they want, and learn how to do HTML5 the Microsoft way. There's sure to be some certifications on that available any day now. I also hear Microsoft has found some love for Java on Azure just about the time we're all figuring out that Java under Ellison just doesn't have the way forward we need. They seem to have an innate ability to back the losing horse.
Or, you know, you could invest your time and money training your neurons to operate in a way that will be a bit more persistent.
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