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Has Microsoft Extinguished Silverlight?

from the dying-embers dept

Thu, Aug 26th 2010 4:08pm — Mike Masnick

Remember Silverlight? That was Microsoft's attempt to take on Adobe Flash. There was plenty of attention paid to it when it launched, but it faded off the map pretty quickly, and that slow fade has only continued to the point that some are speculating that it's now dead. While not the strongest source, an anonymous comment in a forum devoted to Microsoft employees talking about Microsoft has noted that his team was told to stop using Silverlight and focus on HTML 5. It really is quite stunning how little traction Silverlight got over the past few years, and it seems like it certainly could be in Microsoft's best interests to give up the ghost on it.

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Filed Under: html 5, silverlight
Companies: microsoft

72 Comments

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Modplan (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 4:14pm

So I guess all that money for the deals they did to get it used was wasted, not to mention the Moonlight project (http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight).
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Ima Fish (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 4:19pm

Great, that means Netflix will stop using it.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2010 @ 4:25pm

I hope so, netflix using silverlight crashes my browser so often... cant wait for it to die
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2010 @ 4:28pm

I'm very doubtful.
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cc (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 4:30pm

Typical Microsoft. They wait until somebody else has control of the market (Adobe, Google, Apple, etc etc), and then they try to butt in and steal some market share. More often than not, they fail miserably and end up wasting millions.
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Michael Kohne, 26 Aug 2010 @ 4:40pm

If they did kill it...
It's gonna be bad for the guys who did buy into it.

I have to say, though, it seems a bit early for them to be killing it off already.
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Eric (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 4:43pm

silverlight
I dont think microsoft has abandoned silverlight, considering it is the main development platform for the new Windows Phone 7 OS (along with XNA for games)
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Qyiet (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 4:58pm

Definatly not dead
I hear a lot about silverlight in regards to MS Dev work.

I think it may be that they are looking at using it less as a wrapper for video.
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Carlos BUtler, 26 Aug 2010 @ 4:59pm

silverlight dead?
Has anyone heard of this small company called Netflix? When you watch a movie online you are using Silverlight. So if that is dead I would love to see what alive looks like.
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mravinale, 26 Aug 2010 @ 5:14pm

Silverlight Rocks!
speculating, just speculating, is the main languaje and markup for WP7. seriously do you believe that?, I think is easier to believe that there people with fear about WP7 and Silverlight on the web, have you seen LightSwitch?http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/lightswitch, find your self the road trip and plans of Microsoft and the web, don't take gossips for granted.
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JackSombra (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 5:15pm

Let’s see, new version of Visual Studio, made completely in WPF, of which Silverlight is a subset.
New version of .NET, tons of silverlight enhancements (probably more than any other part of .NET
New tool for creating Silverlight app's (lightswitch) released as beta...hmm yesterday?

Then you post as "news" some comment that MS are dumping Silverlight by an anonymous poster as news?

No doubt, in the wider web Silverlight is not doing well as MS would like, but within company’s where it is more about creating business applications instead of flashy animations/games it is rapidly and steadily gaining traction and for good reason as it is a lot better than flash for that type of stuff
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JohnForDummies (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 5:30pm

Silverlight is such a dream to develop with compared to Flash/Actionscript. Plus it's less prone to crashing and is less of a resource hog than the flash player.

Silverlight is being used for Bing Maps, on the Azure platform, Windows Phone 7, Netflix... there's speculation that Windows 8's app store will favor Silverlight for rapid development and sandboxing.

Since the post was anonymous... we can only speculate on what department "alex__" works in, or if he/she is even a Microsoft employee. BUT, if I was Microsoft, and I was wanting to get more people using my web-based services, I would probably do the same thing and focus on HTML5/Javascript -- How many mobile phones support Flash and/or Silverlight?
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2010 @ 5:33pm

yet again m$.
Silverlight yet another attempt by M$ to splinter/takeover a market with crap easy for morons to produce pretty, slow, insecure resource hogs in. M$'s crap has desktop os's 20 years behind where they should be, the web a decade, servers 5+.
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KronikTitan, 26 Aug 2010 @ 5:36pm

WP7 development is completely based on silverlight. So no msft could not give up on Silverlight. As for what you heard about some developers asked to move to html 5, sure, not every task can be handled by a single tool. For some cases, html5 may be better and for others silverlight may be the way to go.
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vishy, 26 Aug 2010 @ 5:37pm

terrible journalism
This is just drivel. Just look IT job vacancies around the world. Silverlight is growing in demand and is paying extremely well.

WPF / Silverlight is the hottest thing in New York. Loads of big banks / trading houses are converting / building apps on this platform.
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interval (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 5:42pm

Re: If they did kill it...
Yeah it will. I know of plenty of websites that bought into it,
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interval (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 5:43pm

Re:
But html5 will be better as soon as more oss developers write tools for it.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2010 @ 6:10pm

Re: Re:
yeah, and this is the year for linux on the desktop.
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minijedimaster (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 6:12pm

Re: yet again m$.
Spoken like a true Apple fanboi. I nominate AC for troll of the week.
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interval (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 6:14pm

Re: Re: Re:
OSS developers don't just develop for linux you COMPLETE *SS!
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Boost, 26 Aug 2010 @ 6:36pm

Re: Silverlight Rocks!
What? Seriously, who taught you english?
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ScaredOfTheMan, 26 Aug 2010 @ 6:43pm

You hear that NetFlix?!!?!
Now will you please let me stream movies to my Mac without polluting it with bloated silverlight.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Aug 2010 @ 6:47pm

Re:
Then you post as "news" some comment that MS are dumping Silverlight by an anonymous poster as news?

Yeah, MS would never dump Silverlight because it "Plays For Sure".
Oh, wait...
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Mike, 26 Aug 2010 @ 6:57pm

Re: silverlight
You are assuming that Windows Phone 7 OS will be a huge success. I rather doubt it at so many levels. Even the name of the OS is wrong. Is Windows Phone 7 OS - Windows 7 running on a phone if so why or if not why not? It is very confusing. It is too little too late. Even Blackberry's latest OS is losing traction.
The innovations are moving WAY too fast for Microsoft to continue to play catch up. The problems lies a the CEO level.
I remember when Ballmer used to ridicule running applications on a browser and now he is playing catch up. I remember when Ballmer ridiculed running a browser on a phone. Now he is playing catch up. etc, etc.
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reboog711 (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 6:57pm

As a Flash Platform Developer...
This strikes me as drivel too, as others have stated.

As a [moderately prominent] Flash Platform developer, let me assure you that Silverlight is considered a viable platform for building Rich Internet Applications. Many "Flex/Flash" shops have also picked up Silverlight projects. I expect the platform will continue to become more prominent over time as penetration grows. Didn't Microsoft rush through four versions of the player very quickly?

I'd hardly say Silverlight is quietly dying.
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JEDIDIAH, 26 Aug 2010 @ 7:41pm

Most Neflix streaming is done with something else.
> Silverlight is being used for Bing Maps, on the Azure platform, Windows Phone 7, Netflix...

...and Flash is used for everything else.

On the one hand, it actually supports platforms other than Windows. On the other, Adobe treats those other platforms like redheaded stepchildren.
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Anonymous Howard, 26 Aug 2010 @ 8:43pm

Netflix???
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MarksAngel (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 10:44pm

I wish somebody would convince netflix that silverlight was dead, true or not. I hate not being able to watch the streaming video on linux.
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tracker1 (profile), 26 Aug 2010 @ 11:16pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
To be fair though, aside from OOo, Firefox and other browsers, there's not many OSS apps that really compare to their commercial alternatives... Not to mention that far more development is custom and/or in-house software than large scale applications (meaning widely used by the public).
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Gareth, 27 Aug 2010 @ 3:11am

All the links on the story linked to from here are about Microsoft ditching Ruby (thank goodness). What does that have to do with Silverlight?

Silverlight is a great way of having a zero-touch deploy mechanism for applications.

It may not gain universal acceptance for general websites like flash has but I don't think that's too important. In a large corporation where applications can be deployed with the minimum of configuration, SL has a lot to offer.
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R. Miles (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 3:41am

I get the feeling the death will be slow and painful.
I wish Silverlight and Flash would disappear from the web today. Neither technology benefits users.

HTML 5 can't get here fast enough, and neither can the 12 add-ons which will allow people to convert a stream to a download.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 6:19am

Re: Re: silverlight
I don't think anyone assumes that it'll be a success. It's obvious that MS is not killing Silverlight if it's using it on it's latest OS offering, though. I don't see Microsoft treating WP7 as something they're willing to kill quickly (most of this year's PDC is fully dedicated to it). So no, Silverlight is pretty much alive, and it will be for a few years.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 6:23am

I think I'm late to saying that this is the most absurdest thing I have read on this century. WP7 (be it a success or not) is living proof that MS is not abandoning Silverlight.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 6:30am

The guy who posted that is a complete troll. See here the Glenn Beck argument: http://techrights.org/2010/08/27/personal-attacks-vs-reports/. I want to postulate that Roy Schestowitz raped and killed a young girl in 1992.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 6:37am

# of internal corporate apps > # of public internet apps > # of shrink wrapped apps

There are thousands of .NET developers working on internal corporate apps that know WinForms. Some also know WPF. If your boss comes to you and says he needs a web deployed zero-install application to meet a business need and it needs to run on Windows desktop and a few Macs, then what do you think would be a better solution? An HTML4/5 with crappy Ajax and tougher to debug client-side javascript or a robust .NET based environment with great debugging capabilities and a great toolset?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 6:40am

Re:
So I guess everyone should give up any kind of innovation, big or small. When someone has the market wrapped up, screw it and don't compete or innovate. What a different world it would be had Google decided to use your plan with Yahoo.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 6:42am

Re: Re: If they did kill it...
How is it going to be bad? It's not going to be wiped from the face of the earth. When they decide to revamp their site, they can go in another direction and hopefully it won't be the pig that is Flash.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 6:43am

Re:
You have Apple listed. What about the PC market? Apple should just give up since Microsoft dominates it, right?
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reboog711, 27 Aug 2010 @ 6:43am

Re: I get the feeling the death will be slow and painful.
The technologies do benefit content creators though.

That said, there is a lot more to Flash and Silverlight than just video streaming. Even if the HTML5 Video tag dominates on-line video (which I suspect is likely to happen eventually) it is unlikely that would be the end of the need for Flash or Silverlight.
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Hephaestus (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 7:17am

I love microsoft ... always a day late and a dollar short
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btrussell (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 7:28am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
http://www.osalt.com/

I use nothing but OSS on my Linux box, which I have not had any problems with viruses, malware, rootkits etc... How does your commercial MS box handle those problems?
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 7:28am

Re: Re:
Apple did dominate the market. Microsoft came in and kicked their asses. That's why your more then likely (90 or so %) using a Windows based PC.
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btrussell (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 7:31am

Re:
http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
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Rosedale, 27 Aug 2010 @ 8:01am

It was too limited
The biggest problem that Silverlight had compared to Adobe and certainly compared to HTML5 was that is was to closely tied to Windows. Sure they did get it out to Mac, but Linux was always a hack. In the world of the web and as a web developer you want to hit more than just a sliver of your audience, this is why streaming has moved away from real audio and wma. You don't want to be tied to those services or to a subset, if large, of machines.

When MS launched silverlight it was defective right from the start because it was limited whereas Adobe can be installed on just about any machine. IMO I think that MS didn't have the good faith that Adobe had either. People were hesitant to be tied to the behemoth and were likely waiting for critical adoption before taking the plunge. Anyway I'll be happy to see it go. I hope Netflix drops it and decides to add Linux support soon.
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crade (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 8:04am

Re: Re:
No, but not putting out lame half-assed copies of everything under the sun and hoping to get some market share because people recognize your brand would be nice.
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Spuds (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 8:22am

Re:
John-- thanks for this. It's true that Silverlight is spreading like wildfire. Here's the reason you don't hear much about it:

It works.

It's installed with your windows updates, kept up to date with your windows updates, doesn't crash a hell of a lot (FAR more frequenly than flash, for me) and does a lot of things. Far more than just video.

It's being ported to other operating systems (even if not necessarily as actual Silverlight) and has a heavy following in many places.

For a Microsoft product, it has a hell of a lot going for it, people love to develop with it, and some big companies (again, Netflix) are picking it up as their preferred delivery platform.

Anyway.. glad to see that someone else out there sees what is really going on with silverlight. :)
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Leviathant (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 8:23am

HTML5 will not replace Flash nor Silverlight
While you certainly can make pretty shapes in a canvas tag, the implementation of audio in HTML5 is abysmal at best. I'm learning this in great detail as I futz around with emulating a specific drum machine in HTML5 and Javascript.

The notion that HTML5 will replace Flash (or Silverlight) is like saying HTML5 will replace JPGs.
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Spuds (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 8:23am

Re: Re:
I meant to say, in my parenthetical statement about crashing, that Silverlight crashes FAR less frequenly than flash, at least for me.
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Rosedale, 27 Aug 2010 @ 8:35am

Re: HTML5 will not replace Flash nor Silverlight
I agree that HTML 5 isn't ready, and my never be, to replace Flash for all a web programmers needs. For one HTML is to slow to implement new things. It takes to long. So I see Flash sticking around for a good long while because they can make changes and adapt to the changing internet much faster. But Flash will be replaced for things like streaming movies and audio, and where able it will subplant Flash on those things.

Where silverlight failed was by not being cross compatible on every browser, every machine on the internet. And by not offering enough of a differentiator from Flash to begin with. Why switch?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 9:07am

This article is about as reliable as the New York Times knocking you are doing.

Hypocritical!
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 9:09am

Re: Re: Re:
Neither crash for me, because noscript doesn't allow either one to load on 99% of sites I visit.
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mike42 (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 9:16am

Re: Re: Re:
Your post is clueless flame-bait. Please find out what they are doing with a technology before posting your ignorance. FYI, flash is an Activex plugin running a derivitive of javascript. Silverlight is a .NET assembly running byte-code or compiled. The fact is, both technologies are falling by the wayside thanks to HTML5.
An alternative to flash WAS a good idea. Activex sucks! It's just that HTML5 killed the demand.
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btrussell (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 9:26am

Re:
"While not the strongest source, an anonymous comment in a forum devoted to Microsoft employees talking about Microsoft..."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100823/04030810730.shtml
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mike42 (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 9:30am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I use OSS antivirus on my commercial MS boxes. Along with TONS of OSS apps. But, yeah, I don't have AV on my linux boxes, either.
tracker1 is either a troll, or hasn't used an app since 1995.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 10:29am

Re:
the new version of visual studio, by the way, gaining literally zero adoption among my developer cohorts who have no use for its buggy, slow, ugly self. It will eventually gain adoption for some of its actually useful new features but this will come at the cost of stress, since it is a lumbering behemoth compared to 2008.
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Overtkill (profile), 27 Aug 2010 @ 10:31am

Shortsighted...
I'm still seeing updates for it go through for client computers on my networks. :)
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Ned Nedson, 27 Aug 2010 @ 1:57pm

HTML5 to arrive in 2012
Microsoft is killing Siverlight off and that is why they are having a track on it at DevConnections in November and why it is the platform for Windows Phone. And since Hickson at TechRepublic has says we can expect the HTML5's full implementation in 2022 it is just around the corner.
(I'm being facetious)
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Mikko, 27 Aug 2010 @ 2:55pm

Re: Re:
doesn't work with latest silverlight content
Microsoft says no to license DRM to Novell so no netflix for Linux users
crash prone
2nd class citizen in silverlights land
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Aug 2010 @ 6:05pm

Re:
Reading comprehension is so rare these days. It must be a small but growing trend.
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Mark Fink, 27 Aug 2010 @ 7:33pm

techrights is a joke and so is that hypocrite liar schestowitz.
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Greg, 28 Aug 2010 @ 8:26am

Re: Re: silverlight
I remember when Gates had to play catchup with the Internet in 95. WPF is the way to go for desktop, agreed Silverlight needs to catch up, but I would not think it is gone-though it is was never a reality for linux folks, cause they don't use it or want it.
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btrussell (profile), 28 Aug 2010 @ 9:18am

Re: Re: Re:
Didn't know that.

I personally avoid sites that require silverlight or IE.
Probably why I am virus free! >:)
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2010 @ 1:11pm

The article is bogus. MS just released Silverlight 4.
Windows Phone 7 is silverlight, and is releasing this fall.

Netflix uses silverlight because it doesn't have the memory leaks of flash.

Personally I am all for HTML 5, but that won't kill silverlight. There is too much that can be done in Silverlight that cannot be done in HTML 5. Maybe this will change in HTML 6.

Bottom line, if you believe this dribble, you are a sucker.
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Billy, 13 Sep 2010 @ 10:57pm

The trouble with the HTML 5 route is that it continues to exploit and extend something that was never meant to be used the way it is currently being used. HTML markup was primarily designed for static content. It has unfortunately evolved into a mess of hacks that represent a good portion of some of the newest, coolest websites out there today (including facebook/twitter).

Today's web development tends to get very messy, dealing with the mismatch of server-side languages communicating with client-side languages across a non-abstracted HTTP protocol that are interacting with HTML and CSS markup. It gets especially messy in this day and age with the use (and abuse) of AJAX in web applications as we attempt to further bend HTML to be more dynamic. Many web frameworks exist for the single purpose of abstracting the various common hacks away from the developer- one specific example is the browser history "fix" for AJAX applications, where a hidden embedded iframe is used with hash updates to track history, simply to ensure the back button will still "work". The typical web application, even with HTML5, will still have these fundamental problems, where developers need to be experts in many disciplines, and have to deal with error-prone, fragile, inconsistent and in many cases, just plain hacky code. While HTML5 does add some very innovative enhancements, the HTML standard in general fails to address these fundamental issues as it continues to extend this technology. The most significant consequence of this is the increased development time/effort which makes it difficult to get a site/application to market.

Silverlight addresses these issues, bringing Server-Client development both onto the same platform and providing better consistency and design throughout a typical web application. Beyond that, it aims to better separate design concerns from functionality with Expression Blend tools/XAML. Now this does come at an expense- you must have the Silverlight plugin installed to view the content, and something no one has mentioned, you can kiss any SEO goodbye if you're using it on an internet website. The best payoff is the huge increase you get in productivity and turnaround time- my observation is that you can accomplish the same thing in Silverlight in nearly 1/4 of the time it takes to build a traditional web application with the same amount of developers.

This brings me to my conclusion. Both technologies will continue to exist, because they both serve different purposes. HTML5 will thrive in the internet world where SEO is critical, where it is unfortunately the current practice for web developers to be experts in all of these disciplines, and there are still many experts (myself included) willing to do the work. And it will likely continue to improve and continue to head in the right direction... but it's not quite there yet, particularly when it comes to building web "applications".

I believe Silverlight shines as the resounding winner when it comes to developing internal/corporate systems/applications where SEO isn't a concern and it is more critical to have a rich experience, where it is critical to use a platform that promotes separation of concerns and ease of development practices (this is especially a concern when it comes to developing web "applications"), and especially where rapid development is key to getting software out to market.

That's my observation and two cents after having been in the web development world for nearly 10 years. And BTW, we're just finally starting to transition to Silverlight as our company begins to learn the benefits of it, and most of us who have been exposed to it understand these trade-offs, and will continue to use BOTH technologies.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Sep 2010 @ 1:29am

Hey, Microsoft haters!

Compare www.StatOWL.COM's Silverlight, Flash & Webstandards news so you guys can finally stop deluding yourselves, will ya!?!

BTW.: The only good thing about HTML5 is SVG which is definietly one of the best standards defined ever.
And nice Adobe dropped it as soon as the

We should all hope that Silverlight gains it's momentum as soon as possible so then that retarded JavaScript and ActionScript kindergarden coding and the neccessity of hacking the unconform implementations of it, finally can come to an end.
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Billy, 18 Sep 2010 @ 6:31am

After using Silverlight for a bit, it's clear that I'm wrong about SEO and Silverlight -- it is possible to implement a good SEO strategy using the Javascript bridge, though it's not "free" as it is in html and requires some extra development effort to get it, and would require some tricks for it to be effective. But this is good news for the traditionally SEO invisible browser plugins.

Although the initial adoption of Silverlight was slow, I believe Silverlight is quickly gaining traction and we will begin seeing it throughout the internet sooner than we all think. It seems to have matured quite a bit since it's inception, and Microsoft has also recently decided to toss WPF in favor of Silverlight which will only help speed up it's progression.
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Ladi, 8 Oct 2010 @ 4:32am

Silverlight
Whoever talks about how HTML 5 is a competitor to Silverlight is clueless. I have 20 years of programming I can say that Silverlight is one of the best technologies I have ever worked on.
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don randolph, 2 Nov 2010 @ 12:06pm

I WAS going to migrate our app, but not now
Idiots. I'm just grateful they let the cat out of bag before I committed our UI team to port to Silverlight. I'm so pissed at their incompetence. I am no fan of Adobe, but I swear Microsoft is making them look good by comparison. Microsoft could not do more to help the HTML 5 cause than this. At least now I know how to proceed.
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trollicus, 4 Dec 2010 @ 3:34pm

Re: silverlight
Actually, according to MS Silverlight will be dropped as a desktop platform and ONLY used for mobile applications.

So No, silverlight isn't dead(yet) but is being reduced to a development platform for W7M.(That's the Official MS tweet)
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Trollicus, 4 Dec 2010 @ 3:40pm

Silverlight is dead on desktops
Ms has relegated Silverlight to a development platform for Mobile technology according to the Head of the Silverlight development project.

Bob Muglia, Microsoft�s SVP of the Server and Tools Business :�Our strategy has shifted,�
�Silverlight is our development platform for Windows Phone,�

He went on to say:

�HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple�s) iOS platform,� Muglia

That's why IE9 is pushing to be fully HTML5 capable. Even NBC dropped silverlight and netflix is creating it's own delivery app based upon x.264
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slartybartfast, 4 Dec 2010 @ 3:43pm

body was burned
Silverlight was MURDERED!! http://bit.ly/cncZvD
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Joseph Miller, 29 Jan 2014 @ 3:28am

HTML5
The whole HTML5 spec is in such turmoil right now, this is an ideal time for Microsoft to take advantage of that ambiguity and create early interpretations of the "standards" (and therefore owning the spec)
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