More pure speculation: Microsoft has been very quiet when it comes to on-demand portable media. Sure, they have announced ’support’ for RSS in the upcoming versions of Windows, and they are slowly conquering the palm-top computing market with PocketPC and TabletPC, and they are making significant in-roads into the home theater market with the Microsoft Media Center PC and Windows Vista… but they are virtually silent when it comes to podcasting and videocasting. Why let Apple bask all alone in the glorious sunlight cast by iTunes and the iPod? Because there is a much bigger battle brewing with a potentially bigger adversary…
Microsoft is about to take on Maromedia Flash. (huh?) Since September 14, 2005, Microsoft has been quietly trickling details about their new fully-integrated tool set (codename: Acrylic) to develop vector-based applications for Avalon and web content. Details HERE. This new system will integrate AJAX, vector-based rendering, web services, etc. It will allow developers to create rich user experiences on the web and on the desktop, especially since Windows Vista has deep support for 3-d and vector-based graphics rendering.
…and Macromedia is not too far ahead, though they are blazing their way new technology (via Macromedia’s Flex 2.0 and Flash 8.5) (- Watch the October 6th, 2005 video - Kevin Lynch, CTO of Macrovision) Sure, Flash is the most ubiquitous client technology, dwarfing both Windows and Mac, and it has grown into a very mature platform with support for AJAX, sockets data access, etc. built in. The company “Adaptive Path” has developed a new application that utilizes the brand-new implementations. Sure, Macromedia seems abosuletly unstoppable. But just how much money would it take for Microsoft to crush Macromedia? Microsoft is just now coming off long-term development cycles for Vista, .NET 2.0, and Office, and I speculate that they have been quietly sinking money into an upcoming challenge to Macromedia.
So, here is the battleground, and I speculate that here is where Microsoft’s money will be spent. I suspect that Microsoft is betting that they can usurp the defacto-leader of vector-based interfaces. If so, Microsoft doesn’t have time for something as small as “podcasting.”
October 17th, 2005 at 8:57 pm
Yeah, and MS flash will prolly be as shitty as Windows Media Player on the mac.
-Owl
October 17th, 2005 at 9:31 pm
The Mac BU of MS has done good on some software, VPC, Remote Desktop, Office.
But Windows Media player, it sucks so much. I have no idea why they don’t fix it. It would be worth it to try and push Windows Media.
Real did an awesome job on the RealOne player, their old version sucked (not as much as WiMP) but now its very nice, and Mac OS X like too.
-Owl
October 17th, 2005 at 9:43 pm
As a Microsoft consultant, I’m truly not worried at all with thier upcoming support for RSS, and Podcasting (sheesh, they actually started calling it Podcasting).
Their PocketPCs and SmartPhones are doing much better than you seem to infer. . .and most of those users are beginning to use the RSS feature.
But there is NO question that Apple “got it” sooner (but to be fair not even Apple know there would be a Podcast explosion).
My point? Don’t worry about Microsoft & RSS — they get it now!
Now on the subject of their Flash clone? I may be a Microsoft consultant — but I’ve received many awards for my FLASH development. Just like all the Photoshop clones that do NOT do CMYK; who cares what the program does. . .I already program in lingo and will be sticking with flash!
June 15th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
[…] HEY! Media mogul David Lawrence has invited me to be on his show again tonight (June 14, 2007) for an hour tonight at 9pm Pacific time (12midnight Eastern). We’ll talk about Microsoft’s upcoming assult on Adobe Flash technologies, me being a geek dad, what I’ve been working on for the past 8 months, and other stuff. I’l probably be on his podcast after the show, too, but I’m not sure. […]