It has been all the buzz of this beginning of the week – the GUI/media market gloves are off between Adobe and Microsoft. The two vendors are just itching to trade blows, sort of like NHL playoff players ready to skirmish and so here they come:
CNN.Money – in a Sunday announcement Microsoft Silverlight is described as Flash player and Flash developer rival
Publish.com – Adobe Launches Internet Video Platform – read Adobe Media Player competitor to Windows Media Player
PCWorld – Microsoft unveils Silverlight as Flash Killer
Computerworld – Is Microsofts Silverlight likely to shine?
PCMagazine – Silverlight is more than a flash
Wired Blog – Adobe announces new mwedia player
The two most interesting takes on the announcement were from CNETs Charles Cooper who wondered aloud was this another case of Microsoft waking up late to a technology shift (RIA) and Infoworld, which really caught the deeper GUI Integration implications of the Adobe and Microsoft announcements. Here is what we know post the announcements:
Silverlight
1)Silverlight is wPF/E-Windows Presentation Framework/Everywhere just renamed;
2)It will depend on Expression Suite and Visual Studio for development tools; – no 3rd party devtools or platforms announced yet;
3)Its runtimes will run on Linux(but under review), Mac, Windows XP, and Vista only plus undisclosed PDAs/mobiles;
4)It is supported on 3 chosen browsers IE7, Firefox and Safari – it currently does not run on Opera 9.2 or Netscape 8.1;
5)It has the support of Major League Baseball, Brightcove, and NetFlix which have promised to use the technology;
6)More MS information can be found here and expect 3rd party and development tools at Mix2007 conference April 30th.
Meanwhile Adobe surprised people with the new Adobe Media Player at NAB2007 in Las Vegas:
Adobe Media Player
1)the player is built on Apollo/Flash technology and runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows 9x to Vista;
2)the player runs both online and offline and supports RSS and SMIL features;
3)the player will have improved audio quality and better media attribute controls;
4)the player allows providers to choose among on-demand streaming, live streaming, progressive download, and protected download-and-play;
5)the player will provide DRM-Digital Rights Management support along with embedded ads for content publishers;
6)beta is to be available this summer; the release is targeted for 2007 year end;
7)Press details are available here.
As we noted two days ago, the GUI Integration race is on and here are the leaders, Adobe, and major contender in Microsoft.
(c)JBSurveyer 2007 If you liked this, let others know:
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