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Distribute Expertise: Flash vs. Silverlight

Jun 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer

Which platform will suit your web-development needs?

Overall, VC-1 placed last in nearly every quality test, including the HD video from The Nutcracker ballet shown in Figure 4. While the differences were certainly less noticeable in the SD test clip, codec quality is a definite plus for Flash and a negative for Silverlight.

For the record, these findings are not new; Microsoft has trailed others in compression quality in the last several comparisons that I've performed. Interestingly, now that Flash can play H.264 videos — supplementing Adobe's proprietary codecs — Microsoft would seem to have less incentive to continue promoting its proprietary codec and more incentive to adopt H.264. This is especially true as the target market for streaming video inevitably shifts toward cell-phone display, because H.264 will be the codec of choice on these low-powered devices.

One of the more fun rumors floating around the floor at Streaming Media East in New York last month was that Microsoft would include H.264 playback in the final release of Silverlight 2.0 — in part to support NBC's Olympic broadcast, which could enjoy lots of cell-phone-based viewers. As much sense as this would make, I checked with my Microsoft contacts, who denied that Silverlight would play H.264 files before the release of Silverlight 2.0, which is scheduled for after the Olympic Games this summer. That's Microsoft's story, and as the saying goes, the company is sticking to it.

The importance of the RIA

Beyond simple audio/video playback, both Flash and Silverlight can serve as players for rich Internet applications, an alternative to HTML design. Before starting the comparisons, let's survey the battleground — which is much more complicated than Silverlight vs. Flash in the simple media-player role.

In essence, both Silverlight and Flash are competing to become the platform of choice for rich Internet applications, which Wikipedia defines as “web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications. RIAs typically transfer the processing necessary for the user interface to the web client, but keep the bulk of the data (i.e., maintaining the state of the program, the data, etc.) back on the application server.”

In essence, RIAs are browser-based programs that provide similar functionality to desktop applications. A great example is Adobe's Photoshop Express, a browser-based RIA that enables a very good range of image-editing features in a very easy-to-use interface.

Not convinced that Adobe and Microsoft are targeting RIAs with Flash and Silverlight? Here's a quote from Adobe's website: “Use Adobe tools, clients, frameworks, servers, and services as a complete solution for building RIAs, or use them in combination with other familiar web technologies.”

Here's a bit from Microsoft's Silverlight FAQ: “Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.”

Why are RIAs so strategically important? Primarily because from a development tools' perspective, RIAs sit at the intersection of Adobe and Microsoft's past and future. Although they are less well-known than the Windows operating system and Office Suite, Microsoft development tools such as Visual Basic (VB), C#, and .NET are very widely used to primarily develop desktop applications. Now the Silverlight browser plug-in is the vehicle to port these applications to the Web in the form of RIAs. With Flash, Adobe was primarily focused on Internet functionality, but with the new Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), the company is porting these RIAs to the desktop.

In short, Microsoft traditionally dominated the desktop, and it is moving to the Web. While Adobe has dominated the Web, it is moving to the desktop — with RIAs in the middle of the two strategic moves. The approach that ultimately wins will sell the dominant share of development tools for creating RIAs and perhaps both web and desktop applications.

In the words of Silverlight developer Scott Stanfield, CEO of Vertigo — the company that designed the Hard Rock Café Memorabilia website using Silverlight: “Adobe has the hearts and minds of the design community, while Microsoft has the hearts and minds of the developer community. You need both to create RIAs.”

Along these lines, Stanfield reports that while the designers on his staff currently use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, he's trying to wean them off these tools and migrate them to Expression Studio — Microsoft's key Silverlight design tool — because it simplifies the Silverlight workflow. Obviously, ActionScript 3 programmers don't purchase VB, C#, or other Microsoft programming tools. Overall, Expression Studio threatens Adobe's Creative Suite 3 franchise, while Flash threatens sales of Microsoft's programming tools.

© 2008 Penton Media, Inc.