Ballmer: Microsoft's Strategic RIA Platform is HTML5

While browsing around the web the other day, I came across what appeared to be the most popular tech story of the day: here in Engaget:Ballmer: next release of Windows will be Microsoft's 'riskiest product bet' .

 So I went to watch the video, and found what no one seems to be talking about, the real gem of this Ballmer interview:

Interviewer: "HTML or Silverlight, what is Microsoft's lead strategy for developing rich internet applications? Silverlight, HTML5, or acquiring Adobe?"

Ballmer: "If you want to do something that is universal, there is no question, the world is going HTML5... The world is just pushing down that HTML5 path, and so are we... What we've really done [with Silverlight] in very good ways is to repurpose it as an important part of the client platform, so yes, you will embrace HTML5, but it's also clear people want client apps... So we're dedicated to Silverlight, but with a little different concept, and we're embracing HTML5."

Interesting... looks like Ballmer is saying Silverlight is on its way out as an RIA platform, and HTML5 is the companies strategic bet. Clearly Silverlight is not yet a client platform, but if Silverlight is becoming their strategic client platform, where is WPF going in the longer term?

Watch the video here for yourself, the interesting bits start 2 minutes in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI47b3a9cEI 

Published Wednesday, October 27, 2010 6:37 AM by mrdecav
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Comments

# re: Ballmer: Microsoft's Strategic RIA Platform is HTML5

I saw that video and the ridiculous "near death of Silverlight" headline and I just don't get it. The way I heard it was that much like I predicted, web apps are becoming passé. Client apps are where it's at and Silverlight is apparently the future of that strategy. It makes sense as long as WPF is intelligently integrated into that strategy. The platforms should become one but if the idea is to lop off WPF and just move ahead with Silverlight as-is then it's going to be a flop for the same reason apps not written in Objective-C/Cocoa look like *** on a Mac. Cross platform code is ugly and boring and satisfies only the least common denominator. Besides, they just practically rewrote WPF in .NET 4 and I'm sure they didn't do it for nothing.

Let's be real here. HTML 5 may be a big step forward for HTML but it's a big step back in terms of modern UI frameworks. It's most boasted features (video and canvas) were the main features in Silverlight 1.0. You simply can't innovate within the confines of a committee.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 8:08 AM by Anonymous

# re: Ballmer: Microsoft's Strategic RIA Platform is HTML5

I know it's still early days for the platform, but there has been surprisingly little out of DevDiv/MSDN on HTML5. The only sessions at this week's PDC related to HTML5 are actually on measuring IE9 performance and "site-pinning".

Bundling jQuery with MVC doesn't count.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 6:27 PM by Anonymous

# Twitter Trackbacks for Ballmer: Microsoft's Strategic RIA Platform is HTML5 - Andre de Cavaignac [decav.com] on Topsy.com

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Thursday, October 28, 2010 9:59 AM by Twitter Trackbacks for Ballmer: Microsoft's Strategic RIA Platform is HTML5 - Andre de Cavaignac [decav.com] on Topsy.com

# re: Ballmer: Microsoft's Strategic RIA Platform is HTML5

@anonymous:

"much like I predicted, web apps are becoming passé.",

"You simply can't innovate within the confines of a committee."

You are either from an alternate universe or you are Rob Enderle.

Saturday, October 30, 2010 12:11 AM by Anonymous

# Microsoft: Silverlight Is (almost) Dead

Following up on my previous post: Ballmer: Microsoft's Strategic RIA Platform is HTML5 , it appears

Sunday, October 31, 2010 11:19 AM by Andre de Cavaignac

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