snydeq writes "While Adobe, Microsoft, and Sun duke it out with proprietary technologies for implementing multimedia on the Web, HTML 5 has the potential to 'eat these vendors' lunches,' offering Web experiences based on an industry standard. In fact, one expressed goal of the standard is to move the Web away from proprietary technologies such as Flash, Silverlight, and JavaFX. 'It would be a terrible step backward if humanity's major development platform [the Web] was controlled by a single vendor the way that previous platforms such as Windows have been,' says HTML 5 co-editor Ian Hickson, a Google employee. But whether HTML 5 and its Canvas technology will displace proprietary plug-ins 'really depends on what developers do,' says Firefox technical lead Vlad Vukicevic. It also depends on Microsoft, the only company involved in the HTML 5 effort that is both a browser developer and an RIA tool developer. 'That's a big elephant in the room for them because you can imagine the Silverlight team [whose] whole existence is to add [this] functionality in. [But] if Internet Explorer puts it already in there, why do we have Silverlight?' asks Mozilla's Dion Almaer." Link to Original Source
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Looking back at how wonderfully Microsoft conforms to standards, we'll have to see on this one. Most browsers are pretty well HTML compliant though (that is their main job, right?), so I have some hope that Microsoft will actually full support it. They seem to be trying a little harder with every release and unfortunately they still control the game in a way. Also, I mean really, how far off is this? We don't even know what the web will look like once they've finally finalized the HTML 5 specs. That's
The assumption that the IE team is motivated to compete with other browsers on the grounds of standards/feature support is naive. With Silverlight being pushed through every vector they can think of, I'm gonna go ahead and assume there's a list of features that they consider "just enough" to up the browser version number. This is MICROSOFT we're talking about. Are you telling me they couldn't implement a smoking-fast JavaScript engine? Or a few new CSS selectors? Or canvas? They simply have no interest. The
Read Shapiro & Varian on the economics of software IP and company valuation:
1) The total value of a software company is the sum of the value of its IP, plus its liquidation value (hock the furniture, hand the staff over, sell the building).
2) The total value of software IP is the sum of costs to customers of switching to a competing product.
In layman's terms, my software company creates value by grabbing customers and imposing costs on them if they switch away. THERE IS NO OTHER VALUE
As an addendum: Remember how Adobe touted SVG before they bought Macromedia? They made a pretty good SVG player too: you can still get it here [adobe.com]. Of course, it hasn't been updated for ages, and the first thing on that page is "Please note that Adobe has announced that it will discontinue support for Adobe SVG Viewer on January 1, 2009".
We'll see (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The assumption that the IE team is motivated to compete with other browsers on the grounds of standards/feature support is naive. With Silverlight being pushed through every vector they can think of, I'm gonna go ahead and assume there's a list of features that they consider "just enough" to up the browser version number. This is MICROSOFT we're talking about. Are you telling me they couldn't implement a smoking-fast JavaScript engine? Or a few new CSS selectors? Or canvas? They simply have no interest. The
Why would MS/Adobe hurt themselves? (Score:2)
Read Shapiro & Varian on the economics of software IP and company valuation:
1) The total value of a software company is the sum of the value of its IP, plus its liquidation value (hock the furniture, hand the staff over, sell the building).
2) The total value of software IP is the sum of costs to customers of switching to a competing product.
In layman's terms, my software company creates value by grabbing customers and imposing costs on them if they switch away. THERE IS NO OTHER VALUE
Re: (Score:2)
As an addendum: Remember how Adobe touted SVG before they bought Macromedia? They made a pretty good SVG player too: you can still get it here [adobe.com]. Of course, it hasn't been updated for ages, and the first thing on that page is "Please note that Adobe has announced that it will discontinue support for Adobe SVG Viewer on January 1, 2009".
Screw Flash. Screw Acrobat. Screw Silverlight.