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NBC dumps Microsoft’s Silverlight after Olympics; goes back to Adobe’s Flash for NFL

Monday, September 8, 2008 · 8:42 am · 37 Comments

“NBC just finished broadcasting the Olympics online with Microsoft’s Silverlight video technology, but the network and the NFL are turning back to Adobe’s Flash for live streaming of Sunday Night Football this fall, and started tonight with the season opener between the NY Giants and the Washington Redskins,” Michael Learmonth reports for Silicon Alley Insider.

“The Olympics online were a joint production between NBC and Microsoft, and an opportunity for Microsoft to build a user base for Sillverlight, its new media player. But Flash has a much larger installed base: Adobe says it’s installed on 98% of Internet-connected desktops,” Learmonth reports.

“Microsoft, meanwhile, said that during the Olympics, 40 million US to visitors NBCOlympics.com didn’t yet have Silverlight installed,” Learmonth reports.

Full article here.

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Comment Feed

37 Comments

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jtc

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 8:44 am · Reply

I sure didn’t see this comin..

</sarcasm>
shen

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 8:46 am · Reply

flash sucks. huge resource hog, slow, flakey.

and silverlight makes it look good. really good.

can’t say i am shocked.
zippy

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 8:47 am · Reply

I refuse to infect my macs with silverlight.
iMike

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 8:51 am · Reply

One ore to go. Dump flash!!!!
Raphael Salgado

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:04 am · Reply

Silverlight and Flash aren’t nearly half as bad as the pop ups I get on this site using Firefox. I have to surf this site with only Google Chrome or Safari and I’ll be safe.
gladmax

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:13 am · Reply

@Raphael:
You will get NO pop-ups using Firefox if you install the AdBlock Plus plug-in.
Macaday

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:20 am · Reply

Flash and Silverlight ought both be condemned to the junkheap.

Ubiquitous does not translate into good.
ElderNorm

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:22 am · Reply

Just read the attached article and found it interesting that Microsoft is playing the “Just because we are not the majority player does not mean that we are not good” card.

Of course they also like to play the, “We are the majority player in OS so we must be the best, forget those up and coming players”.

I guess if you are Microsoft, you get used to saying what ever makes you look good since its all about sales and not customer.

HMMMmmmmm. Didnt Steve Jobs say something like that a number of years ago??? Something about sales running the company????

Just a thought.

en
LibberGotcha

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:22 am · Reply

what do you expect from NBC, a company so dum that they ko’d The KO?
Erk

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:28 am · Reply

of the two, I think silverlight is actually much better, one of the few things I think microsoft has ever done remotely well..

if you have not checked it out, download it and look at some demo’s of what it is capable of

wow I actually gave microsoft a compliment, quick someone smack me!
Another IT Guy...

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:41 am · Reply

I’d gladly take Silverlight over Flash any day and twice on Tuesdays. Flash only gets worse with age–less secure and poor performance in Firefox.
JadisOne

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:42 am · Reply

@Erk,

*Smack*

Silverlight kept crashing my browser. I couldn’t delete that plug-in fast enough.
Predrag

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:43 am · Reply

Erk,

Consider yourself smacked.

I’m not exactly sure if what you’re saying is even relevant. Flash is out there and everyone has it. Silverlight duplicates its functionality and nobody has it. It would have to be dramatically better than Flash in order to justify mass migration.

Is there a reason why everyone seems to be confusing possessive form with plural (demo’s v.s demos)? When I learned my English (in high school), they told me that plural does NOT use apostrophe. Were there any changes in English grammar since the 70′s?
MadDog31

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:44 am · Reply

I heard that the Silverlight deal was only for the Olympics.
yeppers

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 9:53 am · Reply

Silverlight getting dropped IS NOT NEWS.

This is:

” … TomCruise.com iPhone Version Launches …”

My life is complete. Or not.

Actually I think I’ll go back to bed.
Jersey_Trader

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 10:06 am · Reply

The Olympics is over. iPhones are used every day for internet use and dominates smart phone internet visitors. If it can’t stream to an iPhone on the web, it will die off to something that the iPhone can stream.

Advertisers want to sell something and iPhone owners buy the high end stuff.
say what..?

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 10:09 am · Reply

I must say, silverlight is less of a resource hog…smoother playback. only downside is that silverlight breaks the video file into an zillion little files making it impossible to use safari’s activity window to download the video file…
HMCIV

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 10:09 am · Reply

@zippy

I didn’t realize they had a Mac version of silver<strike>fish</strike>light
WindozeKiller

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 10:11 am · Reply

@Predrag,

“Is there a reason why everyone seems to be confusing possessive form with plural (demo’s v.s demos)? When I learned my English (in high school), they told me that plural does NOT use apostrophe. Were there any changes in English grammar since the 70′s?”

The apostrophe is correct IF you consider that you use it to denote dropped characters (do not – don’t). in this case demonstrations shortens to demo’s.

A stretch, I know, but I don’t want to be too much of a grammar snob :^)
MidWest Mac

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 10:26 am · Reply

I wonder what Quicktime’s installed base is?
Predrag

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 10:35 am · Reply

WindozeKiller:

You bring up an interesting point; is it in fact correct usage of apostrophe (for shortening long words)? “Don’t” is very standard, but rather unique. I had always felt that “Repo’s” or “Demo’s” or anything that is shortened, then made plural with apostrophe looked wrong. I may have been mistaken?
Chris

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 10:35 am · Reply

I was one who refused to install SilverJunk, and I made a very angry email to NBC about the decision to use it, and how I would not watch Olympics. Which, IMO not be saddled with a new untested and discrimanatory plug in. MPEG videos play on all computers, either with Quicktime or WindowsMedia. Olympics video should be platform agnostic and play on all computers possible.
Sheesh!!!

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 10:54 am · Reply

Why can’t they just use standards based H.264!
Quad Core

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 10:56 am · Reply

“Silverlight and Flash aren’t nearly half as bad as the pop ups I get on this site using Firefox. I have to surf this site with only Google Chrome or Safari and I’ll be safe.”

Don’t know what you are doing wrong, but I get no popups at all.
Al

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 11:22 am · Reply

If no one gets popups how the hell does MDN pay the bills?