Naturally, Microsoft begs to differ. ".NET was created as a platform
for enabling the creation of the richest possible user experiences
spanning Windows, the Web and mobile devices," said Keith Smith a group
product manager in the developer tools division at Microsoft in an
e-mailed comment to internetnews.com.
Expression Studio will provide tools for professional designers to work
on projects with developers in tandem. "So .NET has not failed to
deliver. In fact, Silverlight proves just how .NET continues to deliver
as a technology capable of spanning platforms, devices and application
categories," he wrote.
Garner research director Ray Valdes thinks Microsoft erred in tying .NET so tightly with Windows, but it's a recoverable error.
"It wasn't an unreasonable strategy. Microsoft is first and foremost an
operating-system company," he told internetnews.com. "At least half of
it is." And he said it is becoming the Microsoft-plus-services company.
"There's a role for services from the cloud that reduces the customer's
client headaches, and there's a role for software installed on client
computers. Microsoft seems to be moving from packaged software only to
SaaS as a dimension of its offerings," said Valdes.
Adam Gross, vice president of developer marketing at Salesforce.com,
disagrees, saying that .NET is not about the Internet but about writing
an application for Windows.
"When you build an app for our platform or Google Gears or Adobe AIR,
you are writing an app for the Internet," he told internetnews.com. "So
fundamentally, developers have to make a choice every day. Do you want
to write an app for Windows or do you want to write an app for the
Internet? So increasingly, .NET and Microsoft are isolated."
But Valdes disputes this. "Microsoft is evolving its offering, it's
adding aspects to it, it's making the footprint smaller, it's putting
it inside the browser with Silverlight for a much smoother, first-time
user experience," he said. This in turn will help foster the full .Net
3.0 stack, which has grown at a slower pace.
Microsoft's Smith would not say specifically whether Microsoft would
consider working with Mono, the open source port of .NET to
non-Microsoft platforms. "At this time, we are focused on delivering
Silverlight for Windows and Macintosh desktops, but based on customer
feedback and demand, we are open to exploring other areas," he said.
Gross believes the decision will be about where to deliver
applications. "The question is whether the next great apps are written
for Windows or for the Internet," he said. "Can you think of one
developer in the world who would rather focus on Windows than on the
Internet? That's why .NET, as useful as it is, is no longer as relevant
as Microsoft would like and why technologies like Gears are so
important."
Valdes notes that while Adobe is going from the browser to the client
in its Flash-to-AIR progression, Microsoft is going in the opposite
direction with .NET to Silverlight.
"It is part of a broader industry trend, enhancing the user experience
both inside and outside browsers, and also focusing on the importance
of the developer experience as well as the user experience," he said.
But that also means a collision course, as Microsoft, Adobe and Google
try to offer both on-demand and locally installed apps. This could be a
good thing, Valdes said.
"In some sense it's all good in that there are more choices for the
developer and the user. I think that anyone who wants to compete will
need to execute well, look at competitor offerings, realize it's a
dynamic space and everything is a moving target," he said.
Pam Deziel, director of product management for Adobe, agrees with the
notion that RIAs are aligned with the SaaS model of Internet delivery,
and that something like Apollo will not turn an on-demand application
into a desktop app. AIR and Flash combined, she said, give it the
versatility and option of choosing how to deliver its applications.
"A significant portion of apps can benefit in substantial ways from
being created and delivered [over the Internet]," she told
internetnews.com. "Apps that benefit from the transactional and
time-based nature of what the user is trying to do are well-suited to
the 24/7 world we are in today."
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