Microsoft Silverlight vs Google Wave: Why Karma Matters

Inevitable comparisons are made between the hugely enthusiastic developer response (including from us at Zoho) to Google Wave yesterday with the relatively tepid reponse to Microsoft's new search engine Bing. The real interesting contrast to us, as independent software developers, is the way developers responded to Silverlight as opposed to the reaction yesterday to Google Wave. Both Silverlight and Wave are aimed at taking the internet experience to the next level. To be perfectly honest, Silverlight is a great piece of technology. Google Wave, as yet, is not much more than a concept and an announcement. 

It is easy to dismiss all this with "Oh, the press just loves to hype everything Google, and loves to hate Microsoft," but that cannot explain why even competitors like us are willing to embrace Google's innovations, but stay away from perfectly good innovations from Microsoft, such as Silverlight? 

It comes down to one word: karma. Microsoft just has so much bad karma in this industry that I cannot imagine a company like us trusting them on much of anything. Take Silverlight: Microsoft pledged that they will always support Silverlight on Mac and Linux, and on browsers other than IE. Do you really, really believe their promise? Let's recap some ancient history here: Microsoft used to have IE for Solaris and even had a beta of IE for Linux. That was when IE was way behind Netscape and was trying to catch up. Once Netscape was safely vanquished, Microsoft's commitment to support IE on other platforms vanished. In fact, Microsoft intentionally pulled IE on other platforms, because it was clear to them that making the web experience suck on other platforms was a way to keep Windows firmly entrenched. I am glad they adopted that strategy, because that strategy eventually paved the way for Firefox (and Safari and Chrome ...), and together those browsers have rendered the operating system utterly irrelevant. Apple's resurgence - based on design prowess, not platform dominance - and Vista's failure, have demonstrated that convincingly.

Let's try to imagine what a Google Silverlight would have been. It would have been a fully open source product from Google, with a very liberal open source license (BSD or Apache). It would have all the technical specifications published openly. They would pledge to have the Silverlight VM interoperate with Javascript and HTML5. And a company like Zoho would have a ton of developers working on Google Silverlight based applications by now - as opposed to having exactly ZERO developers working on Microsoft Silverlight. Please note that this has nothing to do with the technology: as I said before, I happen to agree that Silverlight is a great piece of technology. 

What could Microsoft do to earn our trust? For starters, they could really support all the web standards on IE.  IE is increasingly an embarrassment of a browser and a pain for developers to support. The only reason IE is making any progress at all is the competition from Firefox and Safari and Chrome. I know, IE was once known for web innovation, including AJAX - but that was the time Microsoft was really trying to catch up and beat Netscape. Fair or not, the impression independent developers get is that Microsoft would prefer the web to stay crippled, so pesky applications that challenge their cash cows can stay frozen as "online Wordpad", as Bill Gates put it. 

That brings us back to Google: today, it is Google which is driving web standards forward. That is why we at Zoho are firmly aligned with them, even if they are our primary competitor. We believe in an open web, there is plenty of opportunity for all of us. Could Google abuse its position? Well, I am sure they understand karma! 



Comments

138 Replies to Microsoft Silverlight vs Google Wave: Why Karma Matters

  1. And it's really not as much as the "just support the standards" crowd might think that it is so Microsoft is being torn in two different directions.

  2. And it's really not as much as the "just support the standards" crowd might think that it is so Microsoft is being torn in two different directions.

  3. wave is not comparible to it
    this is a different technology ,And it's really not as much as the "just support the standards" crowd might think that it is so Microsoft is being torn in two different directions.

  4. wave is not comparible to it
    this is a different technology ,And it's really not as much as the "just support the standards" crowd might think that it is so Microsoft is being torn in two different directions.

  5. "Regrettably, while Silverlight version 3.0 is almost ready, Moonlight has fallen behind and is still at version 1.0"Go figure. Perhaps it's because Microsoft failed to provide the specification until months after they delivered the beta Windows version.Microsoft cannot be trusted. When Adobe disappears communication channels between the Mono project and Silverlight will dry up again. Fortunately, everyone in the web community realises this and are being sensible and using the Microsoft-free HTML5 instead.

  6. "Regrettably, while Silverlight version 3.0 is almost ready, Moonlight has fallen behind and is still at version 1.0"Go figure. Perhaps it's because Microsoft failed to provide the specification until months after they delivered the beta Windows version.Microsoft cannot be trusted. When Adobe disappears communication channels between the Mono project and Silverlight will dry up again. Fortunately, everyone in the web community realises this and are being sensible and using the Microsoft-free HTML5 instead.

  7. To understand the "politics" of this discussion, slash comparison, is to understand that everyone involved, Google, Zoho, Microsoft, and every single contributor has a vested "self-interest". I'm not entirely sure what this particular writer had in mind when he made his comparison (and he is comparing by virtue of the title) between Silverlight vs. Wave. To my understanding Wave is a collaborative open source framework, while Silverlight is a rich client plugin... Perhaps the comparison is intended to enflame the "open source" debate once again. I think open source is a great idea, but so is world peace. Will Microsoft embrace an open source mentality? I think they can and should... Does open source breed better innovation? I think it can... at the very least it puts more players in the game. So in whose interest does "open source" really serve? Well, we all know the answer to that... anyone who wants to be a stakeholder in the technology in question.
    I suggest that everyone remember that all the players in this thread are motivated by the same goal. Success! Whether we are discussing personal or business success matters little... everyone wants to know that they are relevant and successful in their space! Silverlight as a cross-platform rich client plugin is very relevant and very real. Google Wave, as an always on, collaborative framework is also extremely compelling and significant, but is not yet ready for production. Microsoft Azure is also significant in the same space as Wave, but has a much different emphasis, and is also not ready for prime time. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of both of these technologies. However, the winner will not be determined by whether it is "open source" or not, but by availability, extensibility, and most of all by usability. In this way, business and users (developers) will determine the success or failure of any technology over time.
    As an information systems consultant for both development and infrastructure I have to say that Google Wave smacks of something old. In my experience most new technology isn’t really new, it’s simply an old idea rethought. Google Wave starts with the premise that everything we do in collaboration or communication is tied to a single “kind” of technology, electronic mail. So, why not combine all collaboration into a single framework, enable it over the web, and voila… we have a Wave of collaboration that is searchable and business information sustainable. Well, that sounds a lot like Lotus Notes to me!
    I was never a huge proponent of Lotus Notes. It was a pain in the rear to maintain, had some nasty user side effects, I personally hated it as an e-mail client, and to me epitomized the phrase that a good screwdriver makes a very poor hammer! It had its uses, was very secure, but was what I classify as “junk” because it never gained wide acceptance for all of its professed uses. Perhaps the Wave framework will overcome the Notes deficiencies. But, without a rich interface it is simply some cool backend technology that only a developer would care about. Seriously, the connectivity and integration concepts in Wave are really extremely awesome… The real time updates, totally cool, and open source too… great! But there is no substitute for an awesome looking interface to tie it all together. Is a Mac really better than a PC? I don’t really think so, but the Mac’s look really cool! In the end, Mac, PC, whatever… they are simply becoming nothing more than modern terminal emulators anyway! Wave needs more than promises to become relevant.

  8. To understand the "politics" of this discussion, slash comparison, is to understand that everyone involved, Google, Zoho, Microsoft, and every single contributor has a vested "self-interest". I'm not entirely sure what this particular writer had in mind when he made his comparison (and he is comparing by virtue of the title) between Silverlight vs. Wave. To my understanding Wave is a collaborative open source framework, while Silverlight is a rich client plugin... Perhaps the comparison is intended to enflame the "open source" debate once again. I think open source is a great idea, but so is world peace. Will Microsoft embrace an open source mentality? I think they can and should... Does open source breed better innovation? I think it can... at the very least it puts more players in the game. So in whose interest does "open source" really serve? Well, we all know the answer to that... anyone who wants to be a stakeholder in the technology in question.
    I suggest that everyone remember that all the players in this thread are motivated by the same goal. Success! Whether we are discussing personal or business success matters little... everyone wants to know that they are relevant and successful in their space! Silverlight as a cross-platform rich client plugin is very relevant and very real. Google Wave, as an always on, collaborative framework is also extremely compelling and significant, but is not yet ready for production. Microsoft Azure is also significant in the same space as Wave, but has a much different emphasis, and is also not ready for prime time. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of both of these technologies. However, the winner will not be determined by whether it is "open source" or not, but by availability, extensibility, and most of all by usability. In this way, business and users (developers) will determine the success or failure of any technology over time.
    As an information systems consultant for both development and infrastructure I have to say that Google Wave smacks of something old. In my experience most new technology isn’t really new, it’s simply an old idea rethought. Google Wave starts with the premise that everything we do in collaboration or communication is tied to a single “kind” of technology, electronic mail. So, why not combine all collaboration into a single framework, enable it over the web, and voila… we have a Wave of collaboration that is searchable and business information sustainable. Well, that sounds a lot like Lotus Notes to me!
    I was never a huge proponent of Lotus Notes. It was a pain in the rear to maintain, had some nasty user side effects, I personally hated it as an e-mail client, and to me epitomized the phrase that a good screwdriver makes a very poor hammer! It had its uses, was very secure, but was what I classify as “junk” because it never gained wide acceptance for all of its professed uses. Perhaps the Wave framework will overcome the Notes deficiencies. But, without a rich interface it is simply some cool backend technology that only a developer would care about. Seriously, the connectivity and integration concepts in Wave are really extremely awesome… The real time updates, totally cool, and open source too… great! But there is no substitute for an awesome looking interface to tie it all together. Is a Mac really better than a PC? I don’t really think so, but the Mac’s look really cool! In the end, Mac, PC, whatever… they are simply becoming nothing more than modern terminal emulators anyway! Wave needs more than promises to become relevant.

  9. MS is a public corporation that is legally obligated to act in ways that increase its shareholders value. You should never believe a public corporation if they tell you, "We will always do X." There has to be an implicit caveat that you can't count on X if it stops being in their shareholders interest. I doubt that MS really ever promised to support Unix IE forever --they don't even promise to support *Windows* IE forever -- but more importantly why would you commit to a strategy that binds you infexibly to the whims of any 3rd party. Google is a public company too. Someday soon they will have to start worrying about profitability. Do you really want to be left holding the bag if they decide that Google Wave shouldn't run on the iPhone? Might be in their interest someday.

  10. MS is a public corporation that is legally obligated to act in ways that increase its shareholders value. You should never believe a public corporation if they tell you, "We will always do X." There has to be an implicit caveat that you can't count on X if it stops being in their shareholders interest. I doubt that MS really ever promised to support Unix IE forever --they don't even promise to support *Windows* IE forever -- but more importantly why would you commit to a strategy that binds you infexibly to the whims of any 3rd party. Google is a public company too. Someday soon they will have to start worrying about profitability. Do you really want to be left holding the bag if they decide that Google Wave shouldn't run on the iPhone? Might be in their interest someday.

  11. What the heck does Silverlight have to do with Wave?It sounds irrelevant to compare Silverlight vs Wave.Silverlight vs Flash is ok...but this sounds like..???

  12. What the heck does Silverlight have to do with Wave?It sounds irrelevant to compare Silverlight vs Wave.Silverlight vs Flash is ok...but this sounds like..???

  13. The real take-home message from this discussion seems very simple, and very clear:-*** There is no open source alternative to Flash! ***In the web browser plug-in market it was the closed source people who delivered, yet again; first with Flash, and now again with Silverlight which is even better.This story started 14 years ago when Flash arrived, but the only open source contribution to the story so far has been a heap of negative blog posts about Microsoft. If the open source community wrote more code instead of writing their blogs, and a delivered solutions rather than an ongoing rumination of problems, we would not be having this discussion.The failure of open source to deliver in this case is also the real take-home message within the anti-MS blog quote cited above. Indeed, this is only indisputable informational content in that quote; the remainder of the content is nothing but speculation and anti-MS pro-Google hyperbolae. This is not something that I would celebrate or post on my blog. Yet in a remarkable feat of convoluted logic, the author attempts to convert this scenario into a pro open source diatribe, by insisting that if the open sourcers had delivered a solution it would no doubt be so very much better than any software conceived by the evil M$. What a joke! This has been a thoroughly entertaining glimpse of open source fantasy. But returning to reality, open source has not delivered on this one -- end of story.Permit me to propose a new and equally constructive quote for anti-MS bloggers to disseminate: "Those foolish closed source software developers! With all these advantages of open source now written down so neatly in a bullet-pointed list, and only one advantage of closed source coming to mind! Those millions of closed source software developers in this world, and the billions of closed source software users, they must surely be deluded beyond hope as they continue to pursue closed source solutions when 'open source is better'. The brainwashing in the PR of the closed source (by definition bad/worse) heretics must be extremely effective! If only the enlightened closed source community (by definition good/better) had such efficacious propaganda, things might be very different..."Returning to reality, another fact which makes the anti-Silverlight vibe from the open source community so utterly ridiculous is that as we all know perfectly well there is in fact a version of Silverlight available from the open source community, known as Moonlight. It's collaboration between Novell and Microsoft, and forms part of the Mono project. If the open source community were sincere about an open source alternative to Flash, they would approve of this as a step in the right direction, but they do no such thing. Instead, conspicuously, as we can all see with our own eyes, the open sourcers prefer not even to mention Moonlight when writing about open source alternatives to Flash. They prefer to close their eyes and make a wish for Google, their champion and Messiah, to save the day by producing a different open source alternative to Flash (one that has nothing to do with Microsoft). Regrettably, while Silverlight version 3.0 is almost ready, Moonlight has fallen behind and is still at version 1.0. Again, the open source alternative fails to deliver. Yet I've lost count of the times I've read open source bloggers ranting that "Silverlight 2 doesn't support Linux" and blaming or criticising Microsoft. Moonlight does support Linux! Indeed it was Microsoft's attempt to please the open sourcers! And we're still waiting for the open sourcers to deliver version 2!Incidentally, I delayed posting this because I wanted to link to the official web site of the Mono project, but their site was down every time I clicked it in Google's search results. Their site was down again most of yesterday afternoon, so I gave up. I tried it from two different machines in the US and UK, and the domain name resolved but there was no response from their web server (LAMP, Linux/SuSE on Apache/2.0.59, open source platform). The server didn't even reply to a ping. Today the web site is back up, but the HTML on the front page is so bad that it breaks in IE and I couldn't read anything past the first bullet point under the "Goals" section, because the text is dark and the dark blue background covers 90% of the page. (If open source software is implicitly "better", does that mean a problem like this is more likely to be the human factor, the people rather than the technology -- open source developers, system administrators, etc?) A web site that doesn't work is not a good service. I am genuinely, sincerely relieved that I am not depending on this web site. I'm a real front-line developer and some of the work I need to do today is for business critical projects. Thankfully I use the proper original IDE from Microsoft, and not Mono. I could not use Mono even if I wanted to, because no it simply doesn't provide all of the features that I need. Even the best open source salesman in the world with an infallible argument that open source is "better" cannot alter the cold hard reality that the open source solution does not deliver what I need. If I were an open source convert I could be strong and compromise on principle, but I would be making life harder for myself.As Wikipedia points out, open source software has earned the label "derivative" not "innovative". This observation is not unfounded.All too often, an open source product exists primarily to compete with an established and often superior commercial solution, providing a cheap alternative for those who are willing to sacrifice aspects of the original product to save money.To cite a few of the most famous examples: OpenOffice after Microsoft Office; GIMP after Adobe Photoshop; Mono after Microsoft's Visual Studio; etc; etc. Of course there have been examples of open source products which were novel or superior, but it comes down to what works best for the individual.As a developer specialising in .NET/C#, who for several years previously specialised in Java/J2EE, the latter example is of special interest. I'd gladly consider doing it the cheaper and way. But again, open source simply has not delivered a superior or even equal solution. All the text-book benefits of open source that you can list sound great in principle, but I have a job to do and I want the best product I can get.

  14. The real take-home message from this discussion seems very simple, and very clear:-*** There is no open source alternative to Flash! ***In the web browser plug-in market it was the closed source people who delivered, yet again; first with Flash, and now again with Silverlight which is even better.This story started 14 years ago when Flash arrived, but the only open source contribution to the story so far has been a heap of negative blog posts about Microsoft. If the open source community wrote more code instead of writing their blogs, and a delivered solutions rather than an ongoing rumination of problems, we would not be having this discussion.The failure of open source to deliver in this case is also the real take-home message within the anti-MS blog quote cited above. Indeed, this is only indisputable informational content in that quote; the remainder of the content is nothing but speculation and anti-MS pro-Google hyperbolae. This is not something that I would celebrate or post on my blog. Yet in a remarkable feat of convoluted logic, the author attempts to convert this scenario into a pro open source diatribe, by insisting that if the open sourcers had delivered a solution it would no doubt be so very much better than any software conceived by the evil M$. What a joke! This has been a thoroughly entertaining glimpse of open source fantasy. But returning to reality, open source has not delivered on this one -- end of story.Permit me to propose a new and equally constructive quote for anti-MS bloggers to disseminate: "Those foolish closed source software developers! With all these advantages of open source now written down so neatly in a bullet-pointed list, and only one advantage of closed source coming to mind! Those millions of closed source software developers in this world, and the billions of closed source software users, they must surely be deluded beyond hope as they continue to pursue closed source solutions when 'open source is better'. The brainwashing in the PR of the closed source (by definition bad/worse) heretics must be extremely effective! If only the enlightened closed source community (by definition good/better) had such efficacious propaganda, things might be very different..."Returning to reality, another fact which makes the anti-Silverlight vibe from the open source community so utterly ridiculous is that as we all know perfectly well there is in fact a version of Silverlight available from the open source community, known as Moonlight. It's collaboration between Novell and Microsoft, and forms part of the Mono project. If the open source community were sincere about an open source alternative to Flash, they would approve of this as a step in the right direction, but they do no such thing. Instead, conspicuously, as we can all see with our own eyes, the open sourcers prefer not even to mention Moonlight when writing about open source alternatives to Flash. They prefer to close their eyes and make a wish for Google, their champion and Messiah, to save the day by producing a different open source alternative to Flash (one that has nothing to do with Microsoft). Regrettably, while Silverlight version 3.0 is almost ready, Moonlight has fallen behind and is still at version 1.0. Again, the open source alternative fails to deliver. Yet I've lost count of the times I've read open source bloggers ranting that "Silverlight 2 doesn't support Linux" and blaming or criticising Microsoft. Moonlight does support Linux! Indeed it was Microsoft's attempt to please the open sourcers! And we're still waiting for the open sourcers to deliver version 2!Incidentally, I delayed posting this because I wanted to link to the official web site of the Mono project, but their site was down every time I clicked it in Google's search results. Their site was down again most of yesterday afternoon, so I gave up. I tried it from two different machines in the US and UK, and the domain name resolved but there was no response from their web server (LAMP, Linux/SuSE on Apache/2.0.59, open source platform). The server didn't even reply to a ping. Today the web site is back up, but the HTML on the front page is so bad that it breaks in IE and I couldn't read anything past the first bullet point under the "Goals" section, because the text is dark and the dark blue background covers 90% of the page. (If open source software is implicitly "better", does that mean a problem like this is more likely to be the human factor, the people rather than the technology -- open source developers, system administrators, etc?) A web site that doesn't work is not a good service. I am genuinely, sincerely relieved that I am not depending on this web site. I'm a real front-line developer and some of the work I need to do today is for business critical projects. Thankfully I use the proper original IDE from Microsoft, and not Mono. I could not use Mono even if I wanted to, because no it simply doesn't provide all of the features that I need. Even the best open source salesman in the world with an infallible argument that open source is "better" cannot alter the cold hard reality that the open source solution does not deliver what I need. If I were an open source convert I could be strong and compromise on principle, but I would be making life harder for myself.As Wikipedia points out, open source software has earned the label "derivative" not "innovative". This observation is not unfounded.All too often, an open source product exists primarily to compete with an established and often superior commercial solution, providing a cheap alternative for those who are willing to sacrifice aspects of the original product to save money.To cite a few of the most famous examples: OpenOffice after Microsoft Office; GIMP after Adobe Photoshop; Mono after Microsoft's Visual Studio; etc; etc. Of course there have been examples of open source products which were novel or superior, but it comes down to what works best for the individual.As a developer specialising in .NET/C#, who for several years previously specialised in Java/J2EE, the latter example is of special interest. I'd gladly consider doing it the cheaper and way. But again, open source simply has not delivered a superior or even equal solution. All the text-book benefits of open source that you can list sound great in principle, but I have a job to do and I want the best product I can get.

  15. Yeah first thing I thought when I saw this one pop up was "another MS sucks blog article...".Well to be honest I perfectly agree. As a developer that was in the industry in the late 90's it was clear that MS was just trying to wipe out it's competitors. And after that, they relaxed a little.IE5.5 was buggy, IE6 was terrible. IE7 was pretty much IE6 with a new skin, IE8, while better, it's still got quirks that were in there since 6 -or- its got new quirks. Yay.I couldn't give a rats how "compliant" they claim to be, it's not compliant unless stuff renders the same as it does in other "compliant" browsers, without the need for hacks.Problem is, *everything* at microsoft is built to a compromise. And this is purely an issue of $$$. Companies such as Google and Apple take advantage of the open source market to build their products, versus MS who clearly build all their stuff from the ground-up every. single. time. (or they buy out other similarly built products).It is this rejection of the open source community that puts them in an even worse position. People can't trust MS, and at the same time, MS is not even willing to put their trust in the open source community.Not only does it mean that they could write better software but if they opened up their own platforms to developers, well, imagine the possibilities.

  16. Yeah first thing I thought when I saw this one pop up was "another MS sucks blog article...".Well to be honest I perfectly agree. As a developer that was in the industry in the late 90's it was clear that MS was just trying to wipe out it's competitors. And after that, they relaxed a little.IE5.5 was buggy, IE6 was terrible. IE7 was pretty much IE6 with a new skin, IE8, while better, it's still got quirks that were in there since 6 -or- its got new quirks. Yay.I couldn't give a rats how "compliant" they claim to be, it's not compliant unless stuff renders the same as it does in other "compliant" browsers, without the need for hacks.Problem is, *everything* at microsoft is built to a compromise. And this is purely an issue of $$$. Companies such as Google and Apple take advantage of the open source market to build their products, versus MS who clearly build all their stuff from the ground-up every. single. time. (or they buy out other similarly built products).It is this rejection of the open source community that puts them in an even worse position. People can't trust MS, and at the same time, MS is not even willing to put their trust in the open source community.Not only does it mean that they could write better software but if they opened up their own platforms to developers, well, imagine the possibilities.

  17. An interesting discussion! But this Zoho blog post contains so much bias and misinformation, based upon so many factual errors, I barely know where to begin! :)"Let's try to imagine what a Google Silverlight would have been. ... They would pledge to have the Silverlight VM interoperate with Javascript and HTML5."The Silverlight runtime already does interoperate perfectly with web client scripting and markup. So what is the point of this statement? This is wild and pointless speculation by a blogger who manifestly does not understand the product he's/she's trying to write about.Moreover, this is one of the most important advantages of Silverlight. In fact you can write your entire Silverlight application from scratch (e.g. an interactive 3D game, a video player like YouTube, etc) in 100% pure JavaScript! Try doing that in Flash or a Java applet.Microsoft has handed you a genuinely good, quick, easy way to develop and deploy rich internet applications. You don't even have to buy any proprietary software to create Silverlight apps. You can do it in plain text in your web page with JavaScript using Notepad/ WordPad/TextPad/etc. It's pretty clear that this blogger hasn't even tried it yet. Don’t take my word for it, try it yourself and see what you think."Microsoft pledged that they will always support Silverlight on Mac and Linux, and on browsers other than IE. Do you really, really believe their promise?"This would be a fair question based on previous mistakes by MS, but the question is flawed by an implicit misunderstanding of what Silverlight actually is.Silverlight is just a name. For development purposes, it's essentially a subset of the .NET framework. The virtual machine on which Slverlight runs is essentially a compact verision of .NET's Common Language Runtime packaged as a browser plug-in optimised for each supported platform. Therefore question is not wheher or not we trust MS to support an isolated product, because .NET is MS's primary development framework. Neither do we need to ask whether Silverlight will continue to support major platforms, because this is in fact the whole point of the product, in fact MS's entire strategy for this area of the business dictates that the range of supported platforms will increase.Silverlight is an integral part of Microsoft's proposition for cross-platform deployment and web client technology. For the web, it's no less important than Internet Explorer. For cross-platform deployment, it's MS's answer not only to Flash but also to Java. It's the future.Even at this very early stage in the life of the product (iterations up to and including 2.0) supported platforms already include Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and support for mobile devices is set to increase with full support on Windows CE, Windows Mobile 6, and Symbian/Series 60 phones, expected in 2010."What could Microsoft do to earn our trust? For starters, they could really support all the web standards on IE."
    IE8 is fully compliant with current web standards. Again, the blogger demonstrates ignorance of the topic being discussed. Next question?"IE is increasingly an embarrassment of a browser and a pain for developers to support."IE is still the dominant browser. You could equally argue that the alternatives are a pain and should have been more consistent with MS. But this has changed with IE8 as already stated. In other words, MS has taken steps to improve harmonization between browsers, giving up on debated territory where other parties refused to budge.

  18. An interesting discussion! But this Zoho blog post contains so much bias and misinformation, based upon so many factual errors, I barely know where to begin! :)"Let's try to imagine what a Google Silverlight would have been. ... They would pledge to have the Silverlight VM interoperate with Javascript and HTML5."The Silverlight runtime already does interoperate perfectly with web client scripting and markup. So what is the point of this statement? This is wild and pointless speculation by a blogger who manifestly does not understand the product he's/she's trying to write about.Moreover, this is one of the most important advantages of Silverlight. In fact you can write your entire Silverlight application from scratch (e.g. an interactive 3D game, a video player like YouTube, etc) in 100% pure JavaScript! Try doing that in Flash or a Java applet.Microsoft has handed you a genuinely good, quick, easy way to develop and deploy rich internet applications. You don't even have to buy any proprietary software to create Silverlight apps. You can do it in plain text in your web page with JavaScript using Notepad/ WordPad/TextPad/etc. It's pretty clear that this blogger hasn't even tried it yet. Don’t take my word for it, try it yourself and see what you think."Microsoft pledged that they will always support Silverlight on Mac and Linux, and on browsers other than IE. Do you really, really believe their promise?"This would be a fair question based on previous mistakes by MS, but the question is flawed by an implicit misunderstanding of what Silverlight actually is.Silverlight is just a name. For development purposes, it's essentially a subset of the .NET framework. The virtual machine on which Slverlight runs is essentially a compact verision of .NET's Common Language Runtime packaged as a browser plug-in optimised for each supported platform. Therefore question is not wheher or not we trust MS to support an isolated product, because .NET is MS's primary development framework. Neither do we need to ask whether Silverlight will continue to support major platforms, because this is in fact the whole point of the product, in fact MS's entire strategy for this area of the business dictates that the range of supported platforms will increase.Silverlight is an integral part of Microsoft's proposition for cross-platform deployment and web client technology. For the web, it's no less important than Internet Explorer. For cross-platform deployment, it's MS's answer not only to Flash but also to Java. It's the future.Even at this very early stage in the life of the product (iterations up to and including 2.0) supported platforms already include Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and support for mobile devices is set to increase with full support on Windows CE, Windows Mobile 6, and Symbian/Series 60 phones, expected in 2010."What could Microsoft do to earn our trust? For starters, they could really support all the web standards on IE."
    IE8 is fully compliant with current web standards. Again, the blogger demonstrates ignorance of the topic being discussed. Next question?"IE is increasingly an embarrassment of a browser and a pain for developers to support."IE is still the dominant browser. You could equally argue that the alternatives are a pain and should have been more consistent with MS. But this has changed with IE8 as already stated. In other words, MS has taken steps to improve harmonization between browsers, giving up on debated territory where other parties refused to budge.

  19. Sridhar wrote: "What could Microsoft do to earn our trust? For starters, they could really support all the web standards on IE."ROFL! IE8 has been confirmed as a fully standards compliant web browser for over a year now, and is arguably the most CSS 2.0 compliant browser:#...MS does in fact listen to the concerns of its critics, and frequently acts on such feedback to improve its products and services.Regrettably, as this blog very clearly demonstrates, when MS addresses the key concerns of its critics, the anti-MS community (including open source fans and unemployed anti-corporate hippies) take no notice.Indeed, as we have seen above, many anti-MS bloggers are so far behind in their knowledge, and so ignorant of the MS products they're trying to criticise, they can end up regurgitating the same flawed anti-MS arguments for months or even years after they've been proved wrong.Bloggers who are sincere and serious about web standards welcome improvements in compliance. (Bloggers who are more concerned with bashing MS or serving their own interests and promoting open source act accordingly.)

  20. Sridhar wrote: "What could Microsoft do to earn our trust? For starters, they could really support all the web standards on IE."ROFL! IE8 has been confirmed as a fully standards compliant web browser for over a year now, and is arguably the most CSS 2.0 compliant browser:#...MS does in fact listen to the concerns of its critics, and frequently acts on such feedback to improve its products and services.Regrettably, as this blog very clearly demonstrates, when MS addresses the key concerns of its critics, the anti-MS community (including open source fans and unemployed anti-corporate hippies) take no notice.Indeed, as we have seen above, many anti-MS bloggers are so far behind in their knowledge, and so ignorant of the MS products they're trying to criticise, they can end up regurgitating the same flawed anti-MS arguments for months or even years after they've been proved wrong.Bloggers who are sincere and serious about web standards welcome improvements in compliance. (Bloggers who are more concerned with bashing MS or serving their own interests and promoting open source act accordingly.)

  21. This blog post reads like just another anti-MS rant by a proponent of open source, who apparently isn’t an MS developer and naturally wants to promote his/her own preferences.If Zoho doesn't use the Visual Studio IDE to produce their web site, doesn't have .NET developers in their web development team, and does have Flash designers – obviously this is a fundamental reason why it would be less easy for them to adopt Silverlight today. This is the reality of it; but the blogger neglects to mention this key fact, while acknowledging that "Silverlight is a great piece of technology" as though they'd adopt it tomorrow if they could only trust MS.Early adopters of Silverlight are typically development teams who already use MS development tools already have strong MS development skills -- obviously. (MS tools and skills are not required for developing Silverlight applications, but they do make it very easy and the alternatives are not yet well known by those with less expertise in MS technology.)To quote one of the main web dudes at http://Bungie.net " rel="nofollow">Bungie.net:"Silverlight was advantageous to us because it uses the same authoring tools we already have (Visual Studio) and are very familiar with. Oh, and ActionScript is ****." (Achronos)#... 76301&postRepeater1-p=1#21576470(http://Bungie.net " rel="nofollow">Bungie.net is the web site for the top MS-backed game, Halo. It's by far the most feature-rich and content-rich of all gaming web sites, consistently leading the way for other game studios to strive to emulate.)The blogger also implies that not being open source is automatically bad, which isn’t true. (Incidentally, tried to find a download link for the source code behind the solutions provided by “Zoho” but couldn’ find one.)Flash isn’t open source, far from it; but it seems the blogger is only interested in seeking open source alternatives to Microsoft products. In fact, Flash is more proprietary than Silverlight and forces developers to use and pay for Adobe products, while Silverlight can be developed without proprietary tools. If the blogger were an open source proponent and understands Silverlight, objectively he/she should celebrate that.We would all welcome more competition for Flash by Google or anybody else. Adobe has enjoyed a monopoly for too long and now falls far short of the quality that we expect of web client technology and development tools.

  22. This blog post reads like just another anti-MS rant by a proponent of open source, who apparently isn’t an MS developer and naturally wants to promote his/her own preferences.If Zoho doesn't use the Visual Studio IDE to produce their web site, doesn't have .NET developers in their web development team, and does have Flash designers – obviously this is a fundamental reason why it would be less easy for them to adopt Silverlight today. This is the reality of it; but the blogger neglects to mention this key fact, while acknowledging that "Silverlight is a great piece of technology" as though they'd adopt it tomorrow if they could only trust MS.Early adopters of Silverlight are typically development teams who already use MS development tools already have strong MS development skills -- obviously. (MS tools and skills are not required for developing Silverlight applications, but they do make it very easy and the alternatives are not yet well known by those with less expertise in MS technology.)To quote one of the main web dudes at http://Bungie.net " rel="nofollow">Bungie.net:"Silverlight was advantageous to us because it uses the same authoring tools we already have (Visual Studio) and are very familiar with. Oh, and ActionScript is ****." (Achronos)#... 76301&postRepeater1-p=1#21576470(http://Bungie.net " rel="nofollow">Bungie.net is the web site for the top MS-backed game, Halo. It's by far the most feature-rich and content-rich of all gaming web sites, consistently leading the way for other game studios to strive to emulate.)The blogger also implies that not being open source is automatically bad, which isn’t true. (Incidentally, tried to find a download link for the source code behind the solutions provided by “Zoho” but couldn’ find one.)Flash isn’t open source, far from it; but it seems the blogger is only interested in seeking open source alternatives to Microsoft products. In fact, Flash is more proprietary than Silverlight and forces developers to use and pay for Adobe products, while Silverlight can be developed without proprietary tools. If the blogger were an open source proponent and understands Silverlight, objectively he/she should celebrate that.We would all welcome more competition for Flash by Google or anybody else. Adobe has enjoyed a monopoly for too long and now falls far short of the quality that we expect of web client technology and development tools.

  23. Microsoft has been sued twice by the United States government. The company's arrogance is legendary with businesses and customers alike.The history of starting a project to wipe out competition and then canning the project is well established with Microsoft. Remember push with channels - competition crushed - development stopped. Netscape? Same thing. Until Firefox came along IE was dead in the water for 4 years.Microsoft is a sleeping giant that wakes only to crush perceived competition. Bing? Just like all their online properties will be renamed or merged into something else down the road.

  24. Microsoft has been sued twice by the United States government. The company's arrogance is legendary with businesses and customers alike.The history of starting a project to wipe out competition and then canning the project is well established with Microsoft. Remember push with channels - competition crushed - development stopped. Netscape? Same thing. Until Firefox came along IE was dead in the water for 4 years.Microsoft is a sleeping giant that wakes only to crush perceived competition. Bing? Just like all their online properties will be renamed or merged into something else down the road.

  25. I find it weird someone would say Silverlight is meant to take anything "to the next level". It's not even on par with Flash in terms of features, and as it'll evolve it'll start to push in the same direction, not to forget Flash will be evolving all the same. How is this "internet experience to the next level"? It's not anything new.

  26. I find it weird someone would say Silverlight is meant to take anything "to the next level". It's not even on par with Flash in terms of features, and as it'll evolve it'll start to push in the same direction, not to forget Flash will be evolving all the same. How is this "internet experience to the next level"? It's not anything new.

  27. This article is spot on.The key word is REPUTATION.After their abuse of IE's dominance over the years, it's no surprise that Microsoft have got their work cut out to try and lose the reputation they have earned.

  28. This article is spot on.The key word is REPUTATION.After their abuse of IE's dominance over the years, it's no surprise that Microsoft have got their work cut out to try and lose the reputation they have earned.

  29. WOW!A lot of people seem to be pointing out that sridhar is comparing two things that are very different...Well.. what else do you compare? Two things that are the same?Both technologies are supposed standards. The comparison here is about how these technologies were implemented not what they are!If your create a silverlight app today and microsoft decides to abandon linux again, you are left with either redoing the whole thing using some other technology, or being unable to utilize only the features present in the last released version for linux.This is a clear disadvantage, and is also the point he seems to be making.Google Wave on the other hand is something you can jump onto because since the whole technology is open and free.. even if Google were to stop supporting it, you could still do fine on your own.Good post Sridhar!

  30. WOW!A lot of people seem to be pointing out that sridhar is comparing two things that are very different...Well.. what else do you compare? Two things that are the same?Both technologies are supposed standards. The comparison here is about how these technologies were implemented not what they are!If your create a silverlight app today and microsoft decides to abandon linux again, you are left with either redoing the whole thing using some other technology, or being unable to utilize only the features present in the last released version for linux.This is a clear disadvantage, and is also the point he seems to be making.Google Wave on the other hand is something you can jump onto because since the whole technology is open and free.. even if Google were to stop supporting it, you could still do fine on your own.Good post Sridhar!

  31. Competition is great... and I love seeing it push the bar up higher and higher.Having spent that last year and a half working on the WPF/Silverlight framework... all the *other* cats *do* have something to be concerned about. They simply got it right... threading, validation, binding and branding.Flex/Flash - will remain kings of the comic book sites.Java FX - Um... well... happy hunting.Google Stuff - Are we going to build *real* apps here?WPF and the like - Wall Street, LOB, Enterprise and all those lovely http://asp.net " rel="nofollow">asp.net apps are all be re-deved as we speak.Its more than widgets and "see we can do it with our framework" demos. WPF/Silverlight is the still a young animal in the wild and yet there is *nothing* I can't accomplish in this framework.Hate M$FT fine... work with the tools... get promoted.Ohh... all source is available.

  32. Competition is great... and I love seeing it push the bar up higher and higher.Having spent that last year and a half working on the WPF/Silverlight framework... all the *other* cats *do* have something to be concerned about. They simply got it right... threading, validation, binding and branding.Flex/Flash - will remain kings of the comic book sites.Java FX - Um... well... happy hunting.Google Stuff - Are we going to build *real* apps here?WPF and the like - Wall Street, LOB, Enterprise and all those lovely http://asp.net " rel="nofollow">asp.net apps are all be re-deved as we speak.Its more than widgets and "see we can do it with our framework" demos. WPF/Silverlight is the still a young animal in the wild and yet there is *nothing* I can't accomplish in this framework.Hate M$FT fine... work with the tools... get promoted.Ohh... all source is available.

  33. you really does not knw much about IT industry.. right? you cant compare silverlight and wave.. both are very different.

  34. you really does not knw much about IT industry.. right? you cant compare silverlight and wave.. both are very different.

  35. Or perhaps Wave solves a real problem (email sucks), while Silverlight is just an attempt to own yet another market that already has a solution (Flash) and isn't really needed in the first place because using real standards is much better in 99% of all cases.

  36. Or perhaps Wave solves a real problem (email sucks), while Silverlight is just an attempt to own yet another market that already has a solution (Flash) and isn't really needed in the first place because using real standards is much better in 99% of all cases.

  37. This is a weird post. Wave is a website. Silverlight is a rich VM platform that runs as a plugin. I don't get this at all. Silverlight is similar to Flash and Java Fx, while wave is a web application that fuses Gmail + Calender + IM in a rich way using web standads like ajax and HTML 5. So are you comparing HTML 5 and AJax to silverlight?

  38. This is a weird post. Wave is a website. Silverlight is a rich VM platform that runs as a plugin. I don't get this at all. Silverlight is similar to Flash and Java Fx, while wave is a web application that fuses Gmail + Calender + IM in a rich way using web standads like ajax and HTML 5. So are you comparing HTML 5 and AJax to silverlight?

  39. I agree Microsoft has done some questionable things, but let’s be honest, any company that is traded in the stock market has to make their shareholders happy. The second Google became a publicly traded company, the “Do No Evil” mantra went away.Google "Dalai Lama" in Chinese and you get Chinese government sites that attack the Dalai Lama. To Google, money is more important than ethics. Greed triumphs over truth.Microsoft created the software industry as we know it today, without the creation of a single operating system, everyone would have been on different platforms and nobody could have written anything that got any kind of install base. There a millions of companies that rely on Microsoft’s OS for their business! In fact I would argue that if Microsoft releases what they are planning to do this year with Windows 7 and Office 2010, they could single handed take our economy out of one of the scariest recessions we have ever faced. Why? Millions of consumers will buy new computers, corporations will upgrade their infrastructure, and you will see a massive surge in technology! All these computers will need new software, support, infrastructure services, consulting services, sales people to sell. It goes on and on and spirals. What other company in the world can say that?Microsoft has done some pretty questionable things throughout its years. But I think if you look at the big picture, all the humanitarian efforts they have embarked on the people barely hear about, you have to agree that the Microsoft Karama is not as bad as you might think. The reality is people just like to hate Microsoft for their success and being number one. Be honest with yourself... yup that’s why you hate them. Which is fine really, just don’t make up lies to try and backup the reason you like the “underdog” and hate the favourite.The reality is if you compare Google to Microsoft, Google is not the saint that this article might try and portray. This article is just someone using a completely misguiding headline that’s worse than a trashy newspaper to get hits and attention to a product that will eventually be obsolete thanks to Google, a company that say’s they will do no evil.

  40. I agree Microsoft has done some questionable things, but let’s be honest, any company that is traded in the stock market has to make their shareholders happy. The second Google became a publicly traded company, the “Do No Evil” mantra went away.Google "Dalai Lama" in Chinese and you get Chinese government sites that attack the Dalai Lama. To Google, money is more important than ethics. Greed triumphs over truth.Microsoft created the software industry as we know it today, without the creation of a single operating system, everyone would have been on different platforms and nobody could have written anything that got any kind of install base. There a millions of companies that rely on Microsoft’s OS for their business! In fact I would argue that if Microsoft releases what they are planning to do this year with Windows 7 and Office 2010, they could single handed take our economy out of one of the scariest recessions we have ever faced. Why? Millions of consumers will buy new computers, corporations will upgrade their infrastructure, and you will see a massive surge in technology! All these computers will need new software, support, infrastructure services, consulting services, sales people to sell. It goes on and on and spirals. What other company in the world can say that?Microsoft has done some pretty questionable things throughout its years. But I think if you look at the big picture, all the humanitarian efforts they have embarked on the people barely hear about, you have to agree that the Microsoft Karama is not as bad as you might think. The reality is people just like to hate Microsoft for their success and being number one. Be honest with yourself... yup that’s why you hate them. Which is fine really, just don’t make up lies to try and backup the reason you like the “underdog” and hate the favourite.The reality is if you compare Google to Microsoft, Google is not the saint that this article might try and portray. This article is just someone using a completely misguiding headline that’s worse than a trashy newspaper to get hits and attention to a product that will eventually be obsolete thanks to Google, a company that say’s they will do no evil.

  41. ok..i agree ..that microsoft does giv away free stuff..but i dont disagree with the blog either..the way politics is played is written well...

  42. ok..i agree ..that microsoft does giv away free stuff..but i dont disagree with the blog either..the way politics is played is written well...

  43. Fair comments about Microsoft's behaviour in the past but I don't think you can deny that they now recognise their mistakes of the past and are trying to claw some of that Karma back. Let's look at some examples:a)Supporting (with actual real dollar bills) the development of Silverlight for Linuxb)Supporting PHP development on Windows Azurec)All Azure protocols are RESTful, thus open to anyone. Nothing proprietary whatsoever.d) (biggest of all) Building their big bet for the web, Live Mesh, completely upon and/or supporting open standards (APP, Atom, RSS, JSON etc..)-Jamie

  44. Fair comments about Microsoft's behaviour in the past but I don't think you can deny that they now recognise their mistakes of the past and are trying to claw some of that Karma back. Let's look at some examples:a)Supporting (with actual real dollar bills) the development of Silverlight for Linuxb)Supporting PHP development on Windows Azurec)All Azure protocols are RESTful, thus open to anyone. Nothing proprietary whatsoever.d) (biggest of all) Building their big bet for the web, Live Mesh, completely upon and/or supporting open standards (APP, Atom, RSS, JSON etc..)-Jamie

  45. As per my understanding Google Wave is collaboration tool rather some platform which facilitates Rich Internet platform at client machine. I believe Google Wave won’t be alternate product for Silver light from Google. Both are having their own ad-hoc goals and styles.

  46. As per my understanding Google Wave is collaboration tool rather some platform which facilitates Rich Internet platform at client machine. I believe Google Wave won’t be alternate product for Silver light from Google. Both are having their own ad-hoc goals and styles.

  47. As correct as it is to say that Microsoft abandoned work on IE on Solaris and the Mac, it should also be pointed out that they also abandoned IE for Windows as well in the euphoria of the destruction of Netscape. Microsoft's goal with IE was always to destroy the browser market and return the Internet to the specialized Windows net application vision they had originally planned for MSN. And if it hadn't been for the opensource developers working on Gecko/Firefox and KHTML/Webkit, they might have succeeded.

  48. As correct as it is to say that Microsoft abandoned work on IE on Solaris and the Mac, it should also be pointed out that they also abandoned IE for Windows as well in the euphoria of the destruction of Netscape. Microsoft's goal with IE was always to destroy the browser market and return the Internet to the specialized Windows net application vision they had originally planned for MSN. And if it hadn't been for the opensource developers working on Gecko/Firefox and KHTML/Webkit, they might have succeeded.

  49. I just spent half of my Sunday, trying (but NOT succeding) to repair a friends Vista-powered PC... It seems that... Vista was the problem....

  50. I just spent half of my Sunday, trying (but NOT succeding) to repair a friends Vista-powered PC... It seems that... Vista was the problem....

  51. It's not in Microsoft's interest to get IE up to scratch with web standards and risk erosion of their core cash cow - Office... But I think point this was intimated already.Remember too that 'bad-karma' extends way back before the browser and the Web revolutionised our lives. Consider Microsoft's 'embrace, extend, exterminate' policy which put paid to great applications/companies like Word Perfect, 123, Real, Borland to mention a few.Furthermore, let's not forget the lack of interoperability between versions of their own software - Word, Excel, etc...Having been exposed to computing for over 28 years and witnessed some of the shady tactics employed by Microsoft, it would take a gargantuan effort to neutralise the 'karmic imbalance'...

  52. It's not in Microsoft's interest to get IE up to scratch with web standards and risk erosion of their core cash cow - Office... But I think point this was intimated already.Remember too that 'bad-karma' extends way back before the browser and the Web revolutionised our lives. Consider Microsoft's 'embrace, extend, exterminate' policy which put paid to great applications/companies like Word Perfect, 123, Real, Borland to mention a few.Furthermore, let's not forget the lack of interoperability between versions of their own software - Word, Excel, etc...Having been exposed to computing for over 28 years and witnessed some of the shady tactics employed by Microsoft, it would take a gargantuan effort to neutralise the 'karmic imbalance'...

  53. Microsoft has piled up a lot of bad Karma in the last two decades. And they don't stop with it.A History of MS' Standards 'Dirty Tricks'#...

  54. Microsoft has piled up a lot of bad Karma in the last two decades. And they don't stop with it.A History of MS' Standards 'Dirty Tricks'#...

  55. At least one Microsoft fanboy in the comments has stated that Microsoft Word is "open document compatible."Balderdash. They intentionally followed a superceded standard document so that the final result would *not* be compatible with current implementations of the ODF...long after the newer standard document was approved by the Open Document Foundation--of which Microsoft is a member and voted for the update. Typical of their tactics to put in something known to be broken, yet they can claim to be "standards compliant."

  56. At least one Microsoft fanboy in the comments has stated that Microsoft Word is "open document compatible."Balderdash. They intentionally followed a superceded standard document so that the final result would *not* be compatible with current implementations of the ODF...long after the newer standard document was approved by the Open Document Foundation--of which Microsoft is a member and voted for the update. Typical of their tactics to put in something known to be broken, yet they can claim to be "standards compliant."

  57. Bottom line:Microsoft cannot be trusted. It's anti-competitive culture is pervasive within the organization.

  58. Bottom line:Microsoft cannot be trusted. It's anti-competitive culture is pervasive within the organization.

  59. I disagree with your final arguments:Beginning with: "Let's try to imagine what a Google Silverlight would have been...". Google is going the open source way because they don't need to sustain a desktop software company, BUT if you look at what they did on the web they are very close: APIs, Openness? They are confusing people, they don't have a search api anymore, they don't have an API for "Google Sites" (it was closed after JotSpot acquisition) and many openness mantras are for the widget ecosystem but can't be accessed with a web service query.You must compare apples with apples, Google is playing the same [fractal] game than Microsoft.

  60. I disagree with your final arguments:Beginning with: "Let's try to imagine what a Google Silverlight would have been...". Google is going the open source way because they don't need to sustain a desktop software company, BUT if you look at what they did on the web they are very close: APIs, Openness? They are confusing people, they don't have a search api anymore, they don't have an API for "Google Sites" (it was closed after JotSpot acquisition) and many openness mantras are for the widget ecosystem but can't be accessed with a web service query.You must compare apples with apples, Google is playing the same [fractal] game than Microsoft.

  61. You've touched on an issue I too have blogged about, specifically http://www.cforcoding.com/2009... (Battle for the Rich Client).I completely agree that the reaction is different based simply on the company and the history.I mostly agree on the opinions about IE. IE (and even Vista) are suffering from a schism between backwards compatibility and so-called standards. Read Joel Spolsky's "How Microsoft Lost the API War" at #/... you'll see that Microsoft used to do things like make the OS behave different if Simcity is running to support it's erroneous behaviour.Microsoft's stance now is that it's OK to break things. And it's really not as much as the "just support the standards" crowd might think that it is so Microsoft is being torn in two different directions.

  62. You've touched on an issue I too have blogged about, specifically http://www.cforcoding.com/2009... (Battle for the Rich Client).I completely agree that the reaction is different based simply on the company and the history.I mostly agree on the opinions about IE. IE (and even Vista) are suffering from a schism between backwards compatibility and so-called standards. Read Joel Spolsky's "How Microsoft Lost the API War" at #/... you'll see that Microsoft used to do things like make the OS behave different if Simcity is running to support it's erroneous behaviour.Microsoft's stance now is that it's OK to break things. And it's really not as much as the "just support the standards" crowd might think that it is so Microsoft is being torn in two different directions.

  63. I'm confused as to if most of these commenter's read the same post as I did. First of all I read nothing about comparing Silverlight to Wave in a technology sense. The author repeatedly said Silverlight is a great technology.What I did take away from this article is that when it come to trusting Microsoft, Zoho is not willing to do so based on Microsoft's history. Google on the other hand has released their software as open source so even if they choose to stop supporting a piece of software you can continue to develop it on your own.Zoho uses Gears in their products and because it is open source Zoho and others can continue to develop and use it even if Google stopped contributing to the project. Gears has been a way to fill the gap between the current html standard and html5. As html5 moves forward there will be less need for Gears.This article was all about trust and based on Microsoft's past some people will not bet their company on them. Especially if you compete with them.

  64. I'm confused as to if most of these commenter's read the same post as I did. First of all I read nothing about comparing Silverlight to Wave in a technology sense. The author repeatedly said Silverlight is a great technology.What I did take away from this article is that when it come to trusting Microsoft, Zoho is not willing to do so based on Microsoft's history. Google on the other hand has released their software as open source so even if they choose to stop supporting a piece of software you can continue to develop it on your own.Zoho uses Gears in their products and because it is open source Zoho and others can continue to develop and use it even if Google stopped contributing to the project. Gears has been a way to fill the gap between the current html standard and html5. As html5 moves forward there will be less need for Gears.This article was all about trust and based on Microsoft's past some people will not bet their company on them. Especially if you compete with them.

  65. Come on, you need to use your head and think about what you're writing. You're trying to compare Java (Silverlight) to Microsoft Word (Wave).

  66. Come on, you need to use your head and think about what you're writing. You're trying to compare Java (Silverlight) to Microsoft Word (Wave).

  67. arent you jumping the gun a bit here sridhar? google wave is a bunch of screenshots at the moment. and its like comparing apples to oranges. yes you raised some valid points but me thinks you are not looking at the technologies objectively but having your prior biases and experiences cloud your opinion.

  68. arent you jumping the gun a bit here sridhar? google wave is a bunch of screenshots at the moment. and its like comparing apples to oranges. yes you raised some valid points but me thinks you are not looking at the technologies objectively but having your prior biases and experiences cloud your opinion.

  69. I really don't understand where the article compares silverlight and google wave. you are completely biased.. google wave just seems to be a product. Silverlight is a platform for RIA. don't afraid of Silverlight..!!
    you can use javascript in future too..

  70. I really don't understand where the article compares silverlight and google wave. you are completely biased.. google wave just seems to be a product. Silverlight is a platform for RIA. don't afraid of Silverlight..!!
    you can use javascript in future too..

  71. I've lost complete respect in ZOHO. Comparing Silverlight to Wave? Saying Microsoft needs to adopt standards? IE8 is the most standards compliant browser out there. Yes Microsoft did make mistakes along the way (as humans do), but lately they are really rocking! Windows 7 is amazing. Silverlight is awesome and forcing the dormant Adobe Flash to actually try and innovate or die. Google hadn't done much in the search spectrum (other than launch OTHER products) for a long time, and now Bing will force them to do so. Office now supports open standard documents. JQuery now ships with Visual Studio.Wave is the most ridiculous announcement I have ever seen. Have you watched the video of the keynote at all? Did you see the browser crash like 5 times during the demo? It was painful to watch. The presenters literally BEGGED people to clap at some points "It’s ok to clap if you like it and let us know!". People clapped when they demoed AJAX stuff... There was nothing new in that demo. People even clapped at the beginning when they showed a SPELL CHECKER!!!! WOW!!!! It was sad, I’m sorry it just was. Wave is a cloud version of Lotus Notes. I'm so impressed... NOT. It was a desperate attempt by Google to try and steal Microsoft’s thunder for Bing. And it’s not going to work. Bing comes out next week! Silverlight 3 Comes out in July! Wave comes out.... what in like 2 years?

  72. I've lost complete respect in ZOHO. Comparing Silverlight to Wave? Saying Microsoft needs to adopt standards? IE8 is the most standards compliant browser out there. Yes Microsoft did make mistakes along the way (as humans do), but lately they are really rocking! Windows 7 is amazing. Silverlight is awesome and forcing the dormant Adobe Flash to actually try and innovate or die. Google hadn't done much in the search spectrum (other than launch OTHER products) for a long time, and now Bing will force them to do so. Office now supports open standard documents. JQuery now ships with Visual Studio.Wave is the most ridiculous announcement I have ever seen. Have you watched the video of the keynote at all? Did you see the browser crash like 5 times during the demo? It was painful to watch. The presenters literally BEGGED people to clap at some points "It’s ok to clap if you like it and let us know!". People clapped when they demoed AJAX stuff... There was nothing new in that demo. People even clapped at the beginning when they showed a SPELL CHECKER!!!! WOW!!!! It was sad, I’m sorry it just was. Wave is a cloud version of Lotus Notes. I'm so impressed... NOT. It was a desperate attempt by Google to try and steal Microsoft’s thunder for Bing. And it’s not going to work. Bing comes out next week! Silverlight 3 Comes out in July! Wave comes out.... what in like 2 years?

  73. What a crock. There are two types of karma -- positive karma and negative karma. You seem to be focusing solely on the latter, when it comes to Microsoft. Why is that? Microsoft gives away tons of free stuff. Developer tools (Visual Studio Express, Silverlight). Web services (Virtual Earth, Hotmail, MSN). Applications (Messenger, Windows Live). Nobody gives Microsoft credit when it does these kinds of things. The ABMers sneer at them, and then run headlong into the arms of Google who -- guess what -- is doing the same thing. The technology industry seems to thrive on polarization, on picking winners and ignoring others. That's not karma. That's bias.

  74. What a crock. There are two types of karma -- positive karma and negative karma. You seem to be focusing solely on the latter, when it comes to Microsoft. Why is that? Microsoft gives away tons of free stuff. Developer tools (Visual Studio Express, Silverlight). Web services (Virtual Earth, Hotmail, MSN). Applications (Messenger, Windows Live). Nobody gives Microsoft credit when it does these kinds of things. The ABMers sneer at them, and then run headlong into the arms of Google who -- guess what -- is doing the same thing. The technology industry seems to thrive on polarization, on picking winners and ignoring others. That's not karma. That's bias.

  75. This post smacks desperately of "Google came out with something new....quick, lets see what MS product this crushes so we can gloat" Only to realise that erm, there IS no MS product it crushes. Remember, a GoogleWave server can run just fine on Windows, and waves will be accesible from all HTML5 compliant browsers, all of which will also be able to run on Windows (I'm using Chrome on Windows right now in fact). Thats why you end up grasping at straws dragging Silverlight into a GoogleWave post...WTF?Karma?It would be great to come back to this post once GoogleDocs obsoletes Zoho docs, the same way Wave is likely to obsolete Twitter, FaceBook, BaseCamp etc etc etc...

  76. This post smacks desperately of "Google came out with something new....quick, lets see what MS product this crushes so we can gloat" Only to realise that erm, there IS no MS product it crushes. Remember, a GoogleWave server can run just fine on Windows, and waves will be accesible from all HTML5 compliant browsers, all of which will also be able to run on Windows (I'm using Chrome on Windows right now in fact). Thats why you end up grasping at straws dragging Silverlight into a GoogleWave post...WTF?Karma?It would be great to come back to this post once GoogleDocs obsoletes Zoho docs, the same way Wave is likely to obsolete Twitter, FaceBook, BaseCamp etc etc etc...

  77. LOL@Google, the open source humanitarians! Hilarious. You really have drunk the Kool-Aid, Sridharharharhar. You would think that people would realize this by now: Companies (and I mean all of them) act in their own self-interest, not yours. Google produces a lot of POS, permanently-Beta open source dumpware, and it's not "moving the Web forward." What it's doing is trying to move as much traffic as possible to its online properties. Google, no different from Microsoft or Apple, isn't going to let you ride on its back, if you become a serious competitive threat to them. They've done this time and time again, excluding competing search engines from taking part in revenue-sharing, which has resulted in complaints to the DOJ and FTC and lawsuits. This is "good karma"? BS. It's about self-deluding, neophyte geeks who need to frame everything in their world view in overly simplistic terms like "good" or "evil" -- and who would rather glom onto non-existent, derivative technology from Google rather than use Silverlight, which is superb and, more importantly, is here TODAY. Lenin had a term for people like this: "useful idiots".

  78. LOL@Google, the open source humanitarians! Hilarious. You really have drunk the Kool-Aid, Sridharharharhar. You would think that people would realize this by now: Companies (and I mean all of them) act in their own self-interest, not yours. Google produces a lot of POS, permanently-Beta open source dumpware, and it's not "moving the Web forward." What it's doing is trying to move as much traffic as possible to its online properties. Google, no different from Microsoft or Apple, isn't going to let you ride on its back, if you become a serious competitive threat to them. They've done this time and time again, excluding competing search engines from taking part in revenue-sharing, which has resulted in complaints to the DOJ and FTC and lawsuits. This is "good karma"? BS. It's about self-deluding, neophyte geeks who need to frame everything in their world view in overly simplistic terms like "good" or "evil" -- and who would rather glom onto non-existent, derivative technology from Google rather than use Silverlight, which is superb and, more importantly, is here TODAY. Lenin had a term for people like this: "useful idiots".

  79. Great post and agree with most of what you are saying.However, Google Gears was sort of the Google's SilverLight, but unfortunately, today, it does not get too much contribution from Google (they are mostly focusing on Google Chrome and HTML 5). I think Gears was a great way to move the Web forward despite Microsoft. Stuff like HTML 5 but even other features such as Drag & Drop (in/out of browsers) would greatly benefit heavily contributed Gears.Also, the funny thing is that Microsoft, with their plugin strategy, is actually helping maintaining Adobe Flash mainstream. By not implementing the HTML Video tag and SVG/Canvas, developers are practically stuck to do their video/2d components/application with Flash (rather than with Open Web). IMO, Microsoft really got confused on this one by following a loosing plugin strategy (The Web will always remain Open). The good news, is that for the most part, Google is doing the right thing, and with patience, Microsoft will either be made irrelevant or get back in leading the Web the Open way.What Microsoft needs is a visionary executive in charge of operation (as it was once with Bill Gates). Companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft have to be driven by vision and not operation.

  80. Great post and agree with most of what you are saying.However, Google Gears was sort of the Google's SilverLight, but unfortunately, today, it does not get too much contribution from Google (they are mostly focusing on Google Chrome and HTML 5). I think Gears was a great way to move the Web forward despite Microsoft. Stuff like HTML 5 but even other features such as Drag & Drop (in/out of browsers) would greatly benefit heavily contributed Gears.Also, the funny thing is that Microsoft, with their plugin strategy, is actually helping maintaining Adobe Flash mainstream. By not implementing the HTML Video tag and SVG/Canvas, developers are practically stuck to do their video/2d components/application with Flash (rather than with Open Web). IMO, Microsoft really got confused on this one by following a loosing plugin strategy (The Web will always remain Open). The good news, is that for the most part, Google is doing the right thing, and with patience, Microsoft will either be made irrelevant or get back in leading the Web the Open way.What Microsoft needs is a visionary executive in charge of operation (as it was once with Bill Gates). Companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft have to be driven by vision and not operation.

  81. I have Zoho account, but never use Zoho Apps. Do you know why? Because you care more about your competititor (Microsoft) and ally than your customer. That is your customer need decide you use what technology, open or closed.Hate your enemy will not make your product better.

  82. I have Zoho account, but never use Zoho Apps. Do you know why? Because you care more about your competititor (Microsoft) and ally than your customer. That is your customer need decide you use what technology, open or closed.Hate your enemy will not make your product better.

  83. Paved the way for browsers like Chrome?? And all it's ridiculous bugs and security flaws that never get any press on??? Yes - Microsoft screws up and does some stupid things to try to gain market share - but they get back up and keep working at things till they get better... Google's done some backhanded stuff too to get to where they are ... ask them about how open they were when they desperately wanted to get into China... Zoho is opportunistic and aligning with Google since it's an easy fit for them - and rightly so - who wouldn't take advantage of someone else's technology - but no one in the software industry - Google/MS can claim to be truly open and tout open standards!! Even Google Wave has some pieces that are not HTML 5.0 compliant and they need a "small" plug-in to make it work - and what about Google's Native API's??

  84. Paved the way for browsers like Chrome?? And all it's ridiculous bugs and security flaws that never get any press on??? Yes - Microsoft screws up and does some stupid things to try to gain market share - but they get back up and keep working at things till they get better... Google's done some backhanded stuff too to get to where they are ... ask them about how open they were when they desperately wanted to get into China... Zoho is opportunistic and aligning with Google since it's an easy fit for them - and rightly so - who wouldn't take advantage of someone else's technology - but no one in the software industry - Google/MS can claim to be truly open and tout open standards!! Even Google Wave has some pieces that are not HTML 5.0 compliant and they need a "small" plug-in to make it work - and what about Google's Native API's??

  85. google's primary revenue source is web ads. of course they open source everything, as long as they get to see more adds and benefit from result network effects. web plus is a tempting seed but in the end, it's what kept the industry so stale for the past decade plus. applications today are just smarter dumb terminals. the technology front hasn't moved all that much because of google has it.

  86. google's primary revenue source is web ads. of course they open source everything, as long as they get to see more adds and benefit from result network effects. web plus is a tempting seed but in the end, it's what kept the industry so stale for the past decade plus. applications today are just smarter dumb terminals. the technology front hasn't moved all that much because of google has it.

  87. You are choosing not to develop on Silverlight because Microsoft discontinued IE for Linux and Solaris?That's a pretty stupid reason.BTW, silverlight plugins work on ALL of the major browsers and not just IE. Who cares if they drop IE support as long as the other browser vendors support browser plugins.

  88. You are choosing not to develop on Silverlight because Microsoft discontinued IE for Linux and Solaris?That's a pretty stupid reason.BTW, silverlight plugins work on ALL of the major browsers and not just IE. Who cares if they drop IE support as long as the other browser vendors support browser plugins.

  89. A lot of your alleged negative Internet Explorer karma was created by Vic Gundotra while he worked at Microsoft. Vic's the guy who put the big IE "e" on Netscape's lawn when they shipped v3. So perhaps Vic will create the same negative karma now that he's working for Google.

  90. A lot of your alleged negative Internet Explorer karma was created by Vic Gundotra while he worked at Microsoft. Vic's the guy who put the big IE "e" on Netscape's lawn when they shipped v3. So perhaps Vic will create the same negative karma now that he's working for Google.

  91. I also wonder about the possibilities of stuff like Lively, Dodgeball, and Jaiku if only Google had owned them.Oh wait.

  92. I also wonder about the possibilities of stuff like Lively, Dodgeball, and Jaiku if only Google had owned them.Oh wait.

  93. Karma seems to be an interesting way for outsiders to measure a company, but for the company itself though self-interest would supersede karma. For some companies at certain times their interests will be best served by adopting open standards and pushing open source. And that’s what google is doing right now. And I think the moment circumstances change and Google believes that their openness does not serve them well, their love of Karma is not going to hold them back from reversing course.Using this as a basis to cast one company as good and another as bad seems silly.And the comparison to Apple – please. Even with the miniscule market share they have they behave like they own their customers. They try to control every aspect of how and what people can do with their products all in the name of giving us a better experience. An app store where they decide what application can be distributed. !!! How about MS doing the same thing – an app store for Windows where they decide what applications can be used on Windows.You have a vested interest in taking sides in this battle and that is OK. Your primary competitor is Microsoft and not Google. And Google is not just a competitor to you; they may also be a potential exit route for your company.I am not a MS fan boy or a Google/Apple hater. In fact I am typing this on my Mac and use Gmail as my primary mail account. But I also think Windows is the best consumer-grade PC operating system and I love Vista though I dual boot Ubuntu.You make some compelling arguments in this post and I think they are quite valid in their limited context. But the comparisons and conclusions you make based on them are all over the place and are in no way connected to the arguments. What I don’t like about this post is that it provides some facts and arguments, while omitting out on some others, which then make the reader arrive at conclusions that they would not have arrived at otherwise. I think it is a little disingenuous to use these arguments to cast one company as having bad karma and others as if they are acting out of unbridled love for the developer community.In a world where Apple owned the dominant operating system, Bill Gates would be Richard Stallman.

  94. Karma seems to be an interesting way for outsiders to measure a company, but for the company itself though self-interest would supersede karma. For some companies at certain times their interests will be best served by adopting open standards and pushing open source. And that’s what google is doing right now. And I think the moment circumstances change and Google believes that their openness does not serve them well, their love of Karma is not going to hold them back from reversing course.Using this as a basis to cast one company as good and another as bad seems silly.And the comparison to Apple – please. Even with the miniscule market share they have they behave like they own their customers. They try to control every aspect of how and what people can do with their products all in the name of giving us a better experience. An app store where they decide what application can be distributed. !!! How about MS doing the same thing – an app store for Windows where they decide what applications can be used on Windows.You have a vested interest in taking sides in this battle and that is OK. Your primary competitor is Microsoft and not Google. And Google is not just a competitor to you; they may also be a potential exit route for your company.I am not a MS fan boy or a Google/Apple hater. In fact I am typing this on my Mac and use Gmail as my primary mail account. But I also think Windows is the best consumer-grade PC operating system and I love Vista though I dual boot Ubuntu.You make some compelling arguments in this post and I think they are quite valid in their limited context. But the comparisons and conclusions you make based on them are all over the place and are in no way connected to the arguments. What I don’t like about this post is that it provides some facts and arguments, while omitting out on some others, which then make the reader arrive at conclusions that they would not have arrived at otherwise. I think it is a little disingenuous to use these arguments to cast one company as having bad karma and others as if they are acting out of unbridled love for the developer community.In a world where Apple owned the dominant operating system, Bill Gates would be Richard Stallman.

  95. I like the idea of calling it "Karma."Ironic, isn't it, that their plan for maintaining Windows dominance was to pull IE from other platforms, but the result is to make the platform irrelevant for a vast array of applications.I completely agree with your sentiment about Microsoft dropping support. It's the boy who cried wolf.On the other hand, Google has an interesting, uneven track record. Yes they seem to be interested in supporting even "failed" services well beyond their lifetime to support the few users who come to depend on it. That's good.On the other hand, they tend to ignore projects instead of improving them, and they have a bad record of saying they'll open-source something and then never doing it.Still, I'd pick Google over Microsoft any day.Thanks for a thought-provoking post.

  96. I like the idea of calling it "Karma."Ironic, isn't it, that their plan for maintaining Windows dominance was to pull IE from other platforms, but the result is to make the platform irrelevant for a vast array of applications.I completely agree with your sentiment about Microsoft dropping support. It's the boy who cried wolf.On the other hand, Google has an interesting, uneven track record. Yes they seem to be interested in supporting even "failed" services well beyond their lifetime to support the few users who come to depend on it. That's good.On the other hand, they tend to ignore projects instead of improving them, and they have a bad record of saying they'll open-source something and then never doing it.Still, I'd pick Google over Microsoft any day.Thanks for a thought-provoking post.

  97. Another Microsoft Hater..Siverlight rocks --- hands down.If it was other way, he would have said Microsoft Is Copying Google.Everything can't be open source.. Thought silverlight is free if you really want to develop for free use Visual Studio express.If you want great development environment then use Visual Studio (Pay for it).All microsoft development can be done for free..
    Just these Microsoft Haters don't want to mention.

  98. Another Microsoft Hater..Siverlight rocks --- hands down.If it was other way, he would have said Microsoft Is Copying Google.Everything can't be open source.. Thought silverlight is free if you really want to develop for free use Visual Studio express.If you want great development environment then use Visual Studio (Pay for it).All microsoft development can be done for free..
    Just these Microsoft Haters don't want to mention.

  99. Well written.
    Totally Agree with you.You should follow Open Standards.
    I'm anxious to see your next iteration of products.

  100. Well written.
    Totally Agree with you.You should follow Open Standards.
    I'm anxious to see your next iteration of products.

  101. Don't you think Google is taking the same route as Microsoft? Who knows Google might be treated the same way at later point of time.Microsoft > IE > Silverlight ...Google > Chrome > Wave ...:)

  102. Don't you think Google is taking the same route as Microsoft? Who knows Google might be treated the same way at later point of time.Microsoft > IE > Silverlight ...Google > Chrome > Wave ...:)

  103. Great Post!...A few people always think that Microsoft is unjustly targeted and criticized.
    But I think your post bolsters the critics and justifies their stand. Its all about Karma

  104. Great Post!...A few people always think that Microsoft is unjustly targeted and criticized.
    But I think your post bolsters the critics and justifies their stand. Its all about Karma

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