∞ MS favors HTML 5 over Silverlight for cross platform

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Microsoft introduced Silverlight in 2007 as its alternative to Adobe’s Flash technology – a framework that managed graphics, multimedia, animation and interactivity – but the company is now favoring HTML 5 to do most of that, according to comments made at this week’s Microsoft Professional Developer Conference (PDC). Bob Muglia, who’s in charge of Microsoft’s server and tools business, told ZDNet that Silverlight remains Microsoft’s development platform for Windows Phone, but Microsoft’s strategy has shifted to emphasize HTML 5. It’s a move Apple surely appreciates, as the company has positioned HTML 5 as the open standard alternative to Adobe Flash.

Silverlight will continue to be a cross-platform solution, working on a variety of operating system/browser platforms, going forward, he said. “But HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple’s) iOS platform,” Muglia said.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has emphasized HTML 5 – earlier this year, the general manager of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team called the technology “the future of the Web.”

Microsoft: Our strategy with Silverlight has shifted [ZDNet]


  • JMan

    As someone who develops major apps in Silverlight and HTML, I can confidently say that HTML simply doesn’t compare with Silverlight. HTML5 is still an unrealized pipe-dream and will be for several years. Silverlight is here now, gives a far superior development experience, better design experience, better cross-browser compatibility, offers superior functionality, etc…. HTML was never designed as an application platform and any honest software developer knows that. It’s great for basic content presentation, but apps? It takes a big shoe-horn to call it a fit.
    The main weakness of Silverlight (for Apple fans anyway), is that it doesn’t run on iOS, and only one black turtle-neck wearing man is stopping that (MS has said they would be happy to port it).

  • http://theuniversalsteve.com SSteve

    Hopefully that means Netflix will someday soon stop requiring Mac users to install Silverlight in order to watch instantly.

  • Hamranhansenhansen

    > HTML5 is still an unrealized pipe-dream and will be for several years

    The only part of HTML5 that is unrealized is Microsoft’s HTML5 browser, which is years behind everyone else, even tiny Opera.

    In the past, HTML specifications were written independent of the Web browsers, and it took years for the browsers to adopt the new features. HTML5 does not work like that. HTML5 is the first HTML specification to document what the Web browsers are doing TODAY. It is not “coming soon”, there is no lag time while browsers adopt the features (except for intractable slow poke Microsoft) because the features in the spec came from the browsers! The canvas tag, for example, was part of Mac OS v10.4, 5 years ago, and from there went to Mozilla and other browsers, and THEN into the HTML5 spec. Today’s browsers have HTML5 parsers by default. If you don’t put a DOCTYPE in your HTML page, today’s browsers decode it as HTML5. Further, all smartphones have HTML5 browsers (except Microsoft, again they are behind). Set-tops that have browsers have HTML5.

    As far as apps, there are more HTML5 apps than Silverlight apps. Exponentially more.

    But ultimately, this is a moot debate. The Web consists of what is in the HTML5 spec and that is all. Yes, Silverlight has some features that outshine the Web, and so does Cocoa, the OS X development platform, but neither Silverlight nor Cocoa are the Web. Neither Silverlight or Cocoa has an open standard, vendor neutral API like HTML5, and neither of them have free, open source, every-platform runtime like WebKit. You can’t get EVERYBODY to adopt a platform unless you have both of those things. The Web is the one universal platform. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, Adobe and W3C spent the last 5+ years collaborating on HTML5 so we would have a common Web platform. Silverlight … some people at Microsoft made it to further their own selfish goals. These are not 2 interchangeable parts. Downloadable client runtimes are a thing of the past as well. Consumers use the Web, now, not just I-T people. Adobe Flash and Oracle Java are being turned off and uninstalled all over. The security holes that Flash, Java, and Silverlight bring are not worth any benefit they provide. We have maybe 30 platforms on the Web now, and Flash, Java, and Silverlight are on maybe 3 each.

    Even if there were a reason for Apple to enable Microsoft’s copy of Apple Cocoa to run on iOS, which already has real Cocoa, that does not make Silverlight universal. Microsoft would be happy to port it to iOS? I would be happy to reach into your pocket and take all your money if you gave me permission. Why would you ever do that?

    I understand you’re using Microsoft tech so you are naturally years behind the curve, but do some reading. The HTML5 era of the Web started in 2007, we are well into it. I spent the last 2 years converting Adobe Flash apps and IE6 apps to HTML5. Just because IE8 has a 2002 level of Web technology doesn’t give you an excuse to pretend it is 2002.

  • http://blurred... Nick

    I find it hard to believe that ANYTHING Microsoft has developed is “state of the art,” unless it was an accident. Their track record simply makes this mathematically and logically improbable, especially when the much more innovative competition (Apple, Google, Mozilla) have banded together to create HTML5…
    I must say I am wary of installing ANYTHING made by MS on my computer.