5 ms·

The real question is, is this the next Xbox, or is it the next Silverlight?

by dinedal 16y ago

icey 16y ago
They're both successful projects - Silverlight's adoption is still increasing. I'm not sure what your point is?
- dinedal 16y ago
  I am unable to locate any hard numbers for the adoption rates of Silverlight (there doesn't appear to be any officially published figures), but something tells me it's a lot less then the 41.7 million 360's sold. I think that you're right that both are "successful." But I believe I'm not alone in thinking that the 360 was a far greater success. edit: Further research shows 56% of browsers for September sport Silver light (http://www.statowl.com/custom_ria_market_penetration.php http://www.statowl.com/custom_ria_market_penetration.php), but this is hard to compare apples to apples. Personally, to me a ~$300 purchase is worth a lot more then a free plug-in download anyway in terms of how successful something is.
- jordan0day 16y ago
  What follows is entirely opinion and based on little-to-no research, so if I'm way off I apologize: I'm not sure I would classify Silverlight as "successful", just yet. Certainly it's getting buy-in in corporate environments, intranet apps, etc., it's visibility to the public still seems pretty small. Certainly there have been claims made (which I have no reason to doubt) that Silverlight has an install base of > 50% of the PCs on the internet, but I just don't see it having nearly the same "mindshare" as Flash or even HTML5. Now, this may all be a symptom of spending my browsing time on sites like HN and Reddit which are, if not anti-Microsoft, certainly not pro-Microsoft, so take this all with a grain of salt. Amongst .NET developers Silverlight definitely seems to be popular -- I just don't know what portion of the overall developer population consists of .NET devs. As someone who spends a certain number of hours each day actually working on Silverlight-based stuff, I can say I like Silverlight, and it's the right tool for the job we're using it for. After some reflection, I'm not sure what I would constitute as "success" in this space, to begin with. Is it driving a big video site like YouTube? I big gaming portal like Kongregate? I'm not sure those are great criteria for evaluating success, so perhaps my initial evaluation is off.
  - icey 16y ago
    I don't think you're off the mark at all. When I say Silverlight is "successful" I mean that it has gained a reasonable installation base (> 50%) in a short period of time (3 years). In early 2009, Silverlight's installation base was only 20%, so it's clearly making inroads. Will Silverlight ever get Flash-like install numbers? I doubt it, but I also don't think it needs to have those numbers in order to be considered successful. If Microsoft could get the kind of adoption rates for WP7 as it has for Silverlight, I think they would be very pleased. Of course, phones are a little more difficult because it's much more likely to be a binary decision - people can have Flash AND Silverlight at no cost; I doubt there will be many people interested in owning an iPhone / Android phone PLUS a Windows phone. It's become way too common to see people slagging on Microsoft gear without providing any kind of detail, so I'm just going to start asking them for some kind of backing data. Now, if the OP had said "is this the next Xbox, or is it the next Kin?", then I probably wouldn't have had anything to say about the matter.
  - Lewisham 16y ago
    Yeah, I think the problem for Silverlight is that "success" is not a clear idea for such a platform, and if "success" is just large sites using it, then you've got Netflix at least. I'm sure Adobe counts "success" as installed base, but if you were a marketer, the kicking they are getting from the development community is not success at all. It seems more cut and dried in the phone space. Sell units, make happy customers, sell more units. Android is not necessarily making numbers 2 and 3. We'll see when iPhone hits Verizon.
    - jordan0day 16y ago
      Ah yes, I had forgotten about Netflix, very good point!

The real question is, is this the next Xbox, or is it the next Silverlight?

by dinedal 16y ago

The real question is, is this the next Xbox, or is it the next Silverlight?

icey 16y ago

They're both successful projects - Silverlight's adoption is still increasing. I'm not sure what your point is?

dinedal 16y ago
I am unable to locate any hard numbers for the adoption rates of Silverlight (there doesn't appear to be any officially published figures), but something tells me it's a lot less then the 41.7 million 360's sold. I think that you're right that both are "successful." But I believe I'm not alone in thinking that the 360 was a far greater success. edit: Further research shows 56% of browsers for September sport Silver light (http://www.statowl.com/custom_ria_market_penetration.php http://www.statowl.com/custom_ria_market_penetration.php), but this is hard to compare apples to apples. Personally, to me a ~$300 purchase is worth a lot more then a free plug-in download anyway in terms of how successful something is.
jordan0day 16y ago
What follows is entirely opinion and based on little-to-no research, so if I'm way off I apologize: I'm not sure I would classify Silverlight as "successful", just yet. Certainly it's getting buy-in in corporate environments, intranet apps, etc., it's visibility to the public still seems pretty small. Certainly there have been claims made (which I have no reason to doubt) that Silverlight has an install base of > 50% of the PCs on the internet, but I just don't see it having nearly the same "mindshare" as Flash or even HTML5. Now, this may all be a symptom of spending my browsing time on sites like HN and Reddit which are, if not anti-Microsoft, certainly not pro-Microsoft, so take this all with a grain of salt. Amongst .NET developers Silverlight definitely seems to be popular -- I just don't know what portion of the overall developer population consists of .NET devs. As someone who spends a certain number of hours each day actually working on Silverlight-based stuff, I can say I like Silverlight, and it's the right tool for the job we're using it for. After some reflection, I'm not sure what I would constitute as "success" in this space, to begin with. Is it driving a big video site like YouTube? I big gaming portal like Kongregate? I'm not sure those are great criteria for evaluating success, so perhaps my initial evaluation is off.
- icey 16y ago
  I don't think you're off the mark at all. When I say Silverlight is "successful" I mean that it has gained a reasonable installation base (> 50%) in a short period of time (3 years). In early 2009, Silverlight's installation base was only 20%, so it's clearly making inroads. Will Silverlight ever get Flash-like install numbers? I doubt it, but I also don't think it needs to have those numbers in order to be considered successful. If Microsoft could get the kind of adoption rates for WP7 as it has for Silverlight, I think they would be very pleased. Of course, phones are a little more difficult because it's much more likely to be a binary decision - people can have Flash AND Silverlight at no cost; I doubt there will be many people interested in owning an iPhone / Android phone PLUS a Windows phone. It's become way too common to see people slagging on Microsoft gear without providing any kind of detail, so I'm just going to start asking them for some kind of backing data. Now, if the OP had said "is this the next Xbox, or is it the next Kin?", then I probably wouldn't have had anything to say about the matter.
- Lewisham 16y ago
  Yeah, I think the problem for Silverlight is that "success" is not a clear idea for such a platform, and if "success" is just large sites using it, then you've got Netflix at least. I'm sure Adobe counts "success" as installed base, but if you were a marketer, the kicking they are getting from the development community is not success at all. It seems more cut and dried in the phone space. Sell units, make happy customers, sell more units. Android is not necessarily making numbers 2 and 3. We'll see when iPhone hits Verizon.
  - jordan0day 16y ago
    Ah yes, I had forgotten about Netflix, very good point!