How do they come up with all these great ideas? lets list a few of the more recent ones.
Microsoft Flash (Just released in beta)
Microsoft iPod (Its a christmas hit)
Microsoft Google Search (Who doesn’t search with this?)
Microsoft Google Maps
Microsoft iTunes Store (Plays for sure?)
Microsoft Playstation
For those of you who don’t know what WPF/e (Microsoft Flash) is, its Microsofts cross platform (OSx, XP/Vista) browser plugin that allows a portion of the WPF(Windows Presentation Foundation) to be used to make Flash like applications. (Vector graphics, 2d animations, audio, video, etc…)
So now everyone seems to be getting getting a bit worked up about WPF/e. When I first heard about this release, I started off with some grunting and snarling, followed by being kind of moody for a few hours. I have at this time managed to calm myself down enough to put together some initial pros and cons going into this thing.
Pros & Cons of WPF
Pros
1. Competition can be healthy. (Maybe we’ll get Apollo and I cant stop dreaming about it in my Xmas stocking)
2. You can use the standard MS Languages C#, VB.Net, etc…
3. Media playback works with DRM content.
Cons
1. Microsoft once again extends itself too far. Seriously, whats next? The Microsoft Toilet, the Microsoft Refrigerator? Just because its a successful product doesn’t mean you have to copy it throw an X on it and mass produce it. Imagine for a moment the xToilet, I imagine it to be an even better version of those sensor auto flushing toilets at the airport that flush every time you reach back to do a wipe. Its like a toilet and a water slide all in one! PEOPLE! It worked perfectly well when it was just a toilet with a handle. It just didn’t need the “X” treatment.
2. Next week I’m going to walk into work into a new Project and some one will inevitably say “Why don’t we use WPF/e instead of Flash”. Because of this I’m going to have to learn this technology even if its far off from prime time (can they even get it through a demo without a crash?). Also, did you see how slow apps start up?
3. What will happen now that the Microsoft iPod doesn’t use PlaysForSure? Just plain Scary.
Anyway, I’m done with my temper tantrim. Guess its time to get out the Microsoft Blender and see what I can make with this thing. Who knows maybe it’ll turn out to make Microsoft Margaritas. Mmmmm… Margaritas
-s
If you know the history behind it, it’s actually a ‘fair play’ move by microsoft as Adobe was asking for it.
MSFT and Macromedia had an unofficial agreement not to encroach on each other’s space. Then Adobe bought macromedia, and has come out w/ Flex and soon Apollo which completely encroaches on MSFT’s space in the desktop.
WPF is the MSFT response in this soon to be heated war.
I’m not on anyone’s side; just telling you the reason why as I make my living in the java space.
Makes you wonder why MS folded so quickly with the “Eolas Patent”.
The simple solution, “click to active”, keeps the lawyers happy, but ultimately will be hurting Flash usage… and oh look, there is now an alternative which does not suffer from this problem (surprise, surprise).
Like the “poo-pod” (aka zune), we should avoid it like the plague and watch other parties create proper and fair competition with Flash… perhaps someone who might continue to develop the technology after gaining market share - unlike IE6 which stagnated for 5 years before the security patch of IE7 came out (the improvements that IE7 came with should have been made a few months after the IE6 release).
Are there things besides the XBOX that Microsoft has put an “X” in front of? I think it would be more appropriate to say they add “Live” to all their application names.
I must agree with Craig’s point regarding the ‘Eolas Patent’, simply no more ‘click to activate this control’
The other benefit of WPF/E vs Flash is that the content is XML based and as such can be indexed by the major search engines whereas Flash cannot. Flex is XML based so it will be interesting as traditional webdev’s move from Flash to either Flex or WPF/E.
With the MS Windows O/S being the leader of O/S implementation on desktops and then from an advertising point of view online it would appear beneficial for advertisers to develop under WPF/E as the ‘Click to Activate’ issue is now bypassed and a simple ‘mouse over’ the advert can bring it to life vs the ‘other’ option where the user must first click the advert to activate the embedded content.
Macromedia should buy out the ‘Eolas Patent’ and eliminate this from the MS IE world as it is far too inhibiting as a content delivery mechanism for advertising on websites these days. I myself see an online ad and do not click it to activate it as I know it is an advertisement, previously you could just move your mouse over a Flash advert and it could dynamicilly expand to encompass your entire screen whether you liked it or not. This is far from making advertisers happy and WPF/E will give MSFT an advantage in the online environment now for advertising content delivery.
Stephen, you can get around the ‘Eolas Patent’ by creating the flash object with JavaScript, instead of writing the in the source code.
Despite how much I dislike Flash… the main reason being that web developers typically use it for the wrong purposes (like building the whole website out of it).
However, I dislike the WPF even more, mostly due to vendor lockout (MS strangles the market and stops developing it… take a look at how long IE6 stagnated before FireFox posed a threat).
Really MS should not be providing this functionality, as when they do, it stops other companies from competing… going back to the browser wars, IE won because it came with the operating system, whereas Netscape had to be installed separately, which most people could not be bothered to-do.
i work with flash all the time, and its great. but the native support for hardware accellerated direct x 3d in browsers that wpf provides is the best thing to happen to online games for ages. Shame you need vista to run it, maybe they will bring out an xp compatible version?
hi,
First time visitor to your site!!
Great work!!
Cheers!!