As Microsoft readies release 2.0 of its Silverlight rich media technology, it will need to make a better showing on the mobile platform if it is to prove a credible challenger to Adobe Flash. Like Adobe, the Windows giant has been angling to get Silverlight on to the iPhone, but has been rebuffed by Apple; and is now evaluating Google Android. This would be a significant step on Microsoft’s recent path to decouple some of its key software technologies from Windows, a strategy adopted painfully, and largely geared to the mobile world, where Windows has failed to gain the dominance it has on the PC.
Scott Guthrie, VP of Microsoft’s .Net developer division, said in an interview that it was unlikely Silverlight would turn up on the iPhone, but that Microsoft was ‘keeping a watchful eye’ on Android and could even get Silverlight on to the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, made by HTC ‘ a long term close partner of the Windows company. Silverlight 2.0 is already running in the Google Chrome browser, a would-be challenger to Internet Explorer.
HTC has built most of its smartphone business, and its successful Touch line, on Windows, and the popularity of Touch, especially in the US, has helped improve Windows’s standing as a mobile OS, with enhancements to the user interface and aditions like the recent touchscreen. But HTC feels the need to look beyond Windows and has stolen an early march in Linux-based Android (see separate item), and this highlights the dilemma for Microsoft. It will not be able to rely on partners being committed to Windows on an exclusive or even primary basis, and so to get its development and applications platforms into a strong position in the mobile market, it will have to work with other OSs (it has already announced Silverlight for Symbian OS via a deal with Nokia). Such a compromise may be relatively painless in the case of HTC, with which it has a close alliance and a large measure of influence, but will be more difficult when working with companies that are competitors in other fields, such as Apple.
Apple itself has a very different mobile software agenda to Microsoft, aiming to have tight control of its platform and so to keep it several steps ahead of the competition in terms of functionality and the web experience. This means it is happy to remain in a niche, provided this is a high value niche that it controls, and it does not have to welcome in technologies that compete with its own. This has been clear in the App Store, where several programs have been vetoed because they compete with iTunes; and has also led Apple to keep Flash off the iPhone, ostensibly because it supports an inferior video experience to Apple’s own, but incurring the wrath of people unable to make full use of services like YouTube.
Adobe is readying an iPhone Flash product that it hopes will find its way past the Apple portcullis, on the basis of this user demand, but Microsoft will have no such advantage in pushing the unproven Silverlight. Guthrie said Microsoft has developed a version of Silverlight for the iPhone, but so far Apple has refused to support it. “Basically where we’re at right now is we have talked with Apple,” Guthrie admitted. “We are very interested in being able to run [Silverlight] on the iPhone. At the end of the day, Apple ultimately controls what software runs on the iPhone. To date, what they’ve said is that at this time, they’re not looking to enable browser plug-ins like Silverlight or Flash to run on top of it.’
Silverlight 2, which has been in widespread beta for a few months, goes well beyond the ‘fairly basic media plug-in’ of the first release, says Guthrie. It adds adaptive streaming, and a cross-platform subset of Microsoft’s .Net Framework programming model, supporting development in languages ranging from Visual Basic to C#, JavaScript, and Ruby. The framework can be 1,000 times faster than running JavaScript in a browser, Guthrie claims. Silverlight 2 will also be integrated with the Eclipse open source development environment, even though Microsoft is still not a member of Eclipse.
In the battle for the rich internet applications (RIA) space, Flash has a huge headstart, installed on 98% of internet connected PCs, 90% of webphones, and with 80% of the internet video market. Silverlight will gain a major boost from Nokia’s agreement to distribute the system on its Symbian smartphones, though these also feature Flash, and a Linux version, called Moonlight, is being developed by a team of developers led by Miguel de Icaza at Novell.