Most people are aware by this point that Microsoft has released their Flash competitor, Silverlight.
The problem I have with Silverlight is that I can’t find any good examples of websites or other interactive demos (other than the kick-ass ones Schematic has created).
Can anyone point me in the direction of Silverlight examples that aren’t video players? The examples that they show on Silverlight.net are horrendous and basically reinforce the fact that Microsoft is a company driving technology for technology’s sake – they don’t care about good Design (capital ‘D’), they’re technocrats.
Microsoft is trying to play catch up, but they don’t seem to care about the end user and designing experiences or applications that will benefit them. We’re also seeing this echoed their other ‘later runner’ products like Zune and Windows Vista (people are actually opting to downgrade back to Windows XP). Everything seems to be a day late and a dollar short.
Should we care about Silverlight? If so why?
Why should I as a interactive designer use Microsoft Blend over Adobe Flash? (ignore the fact that I’m on OS X)
In industry where Adobe Flash dominates online video and rich interactive applications (Youtube wouldn’t exist without Flash video) and designers and developers work well with the application – what is Microsoft bringing to the table that is innovative?
I think its important to open up discussion on topics like this instead of blindly accepting new technologies.
Have comments? Post em below.