“In a blow to Microsoft, ITV has switched the technology powering its web streaming service from Silverlight to Adobe’s more widely installed Flash,” Chris Williams reports for The Register.
“‘ITV can confirm it has switched from Microsoft’s Silverlight to Adobe Flash to support the ITV Player on ITV.com,’ a spokeswoman said today,” Williams reports.
Full article here.
Nick Wingfield reports for The Wall Street Journal, “Over the past two years, Microsoft has poured resources into its technology for online video and animation — dubbed Silverlight — and has boosted its ability to deliver high-definition video with the technology. Silverlight is positioned as a rival to Adobe’s technology, which is known as Flash.”
“Adobe’s dominance with Flash presents Microsoft with the kind of brick wall that has stymied many tech companies as they laid siege to Microsoft’s own software businesses, like operating systems and productivity applications,” Wingfield reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dirty Pierre le Punk” for the heads up.]
@ nekogami13 – Did you miss all the “Apple fanatics” bashing *both* Silverlight and Flash? The well-reasoned arguments for ditching *both* and sticking with open HTML5 internet standards?
If you want to sing the praises of Silverlight, you’re certainly free to do so… but at least try to make it *look* like you’ve read what others are actually saying here.
The BBC’s iPlayer and Channel 4 and Channel 5’s equivalents all work on the Mac. ITV Player doesn’t. When, soon after Channel 4 went Mac-friendly, I wrote to them asking how long it would be before I could watch Coronation Street on my MBP, they replied that Microsoft’s technology would prevent this occuring for the forseeable future.
Has all this changed now then? Will the ITV Player soon be available to us?
Great, I can now watch stuff on the iPhone. . . . . oh, no I can’t. . . .
@knowhowe: No, it hasn’t changed. They were talking about the DRM system they are using for their Flash implementation which is MS-based. It is tied directly to the Windows underpinnings, and hence there is technically no way to implement it on the Mac. The problem is that they decided at the very beginning on a Windows-based solution with no mechanism for cross-platform viewing. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’ve misspoken. =)
To be fair:
The bad-old-days of Silverlight were when MS dumped it out to market when it wasn’t ready. Déja vu much? I keenly remember the catastrophe it made of the Greece Olympics videos.
The most recent versions of Silverlight are actually adequate for general purpose viewing. Compare that to Adobe (Macromedia originally) Flash which has had a string of security problems this past year and a number of clunky GUI problems.
There was a day when any video software coming out of Microsoft was turd on toast. This was one reason Microsoft were inspired to steal QuickTime code circa 1998. (Yes trolls, it’s publicly documented, so STFU). The monstrosity called ‘NetShow’ followed soon there after and made the world laugh hysterically. And yes, Microsoft are still doing their best to fight off OpenGL via their lame DirectX technology.
But Silverlight isn’t crap, at least IMHO. That’s saying a lot for Microsoft. Now that Bill Gates is out of the picture there are small signs of quality showing up in MS software. I’m saying this as a senior officer in the anti-MS Computer Warz. If MS actually make something that works, they deserve praise like anyone else. There is always a hope they’ll actually become a benefit to the computer community. It could happen!
;-D
It’s a respectable and instructive article. Things are ordered wellspring. Get to bed lot’s of thing’s which were inglorious to me. It’s really one of the most particular article I hold ever read. I bookmarked this page as healed for to get better from it in hereafter.
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Can someone please point me to a site that shows all the MS failings? I need to be able to say “nyah nyah nyah” to the dumb folks at work who still think that MS has integrity. Cheers.
@cubist,
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Problem is, it’s easy to demonize MS, but the reality is more complicated. Like all generalizations, certain elements have to be overlooked to paint the main picture. Yes, there is innovation and great thinking at Microsoft, but those are overshadowed by the failures writ large.