Silverlight as the new UI
There is a lot of FUD about Microsoft allegedly abandoning Silverlight for HTML5/script.
The first big mistake here is assuming it’s an exclusive choice. Why can’t it be both? Windows has two primary markets. In the home market, it sells to users, not developers. It sells on the user experience, and the most visible, most interactive aspect of the new UX is the integration of the Metro touch interface.
Metro tiles are basically Sidebar Gadgets on steroids. Sidebar gadgets have always been built with HTML and script. This is an approach that works extremely well for small, simple, largely stateless applications, and it works even better when you add in all the interaction and multimedia support of HTML5.
The other big mistake is thinking that the home and business markets are unrelated. They are intimately related, because business users are home users.
In the business sector, Windows is chosen for compatibility on two levels. It is compatible with dominant business applications and business application development tools. It is compatible with the user’s skillsets.
User skills are the real reason the not-very-profitable home market is important. Users make a significant investment in acquiring basic interaction skills and committing them to habit. This is why Windows and Mac users both think the unfamiliar platform is horrible whenever they are forced to use it: lack of compatibility with their interaction habits, a bit like driving a foreign car and finding the indicator knob is on the wrong side – it doesn’t matter how many times they experience it, it’s always jarring and annoying when the equipment responds “incorrectly”.
So capturing the home market is a major step towards securing the business market. This is why it is incredibly important to Microsoft to market Windows to home users.
And this brings us back to the FUD about HTML5/script “versus” Silverlight. Recent Windows previews are pitched at home users. Mix11 focused on HTML5/script because these are the new tools for pouring glitter on Windows in ways that will cement user commitment. If Microsoft moves fast enough it gets to define the habits of the (desktop) touch-screen generation in the same way that Apple captured the smartphone market.
The only significance of all this from a Silverlight or WPF perspective is that Windows will continue to be the dominant home platform, and therefore the dominant business platform. HTML5/script is perfect for building tile UX but completely inappropriate for building line of business applications.
Silverlight/RIA and WPF on the other hand are extremely well suited to producing larger scale distributed applications with longer lifecycles and bigger budgets. Business applications, in fact. Well suited to the dominant platform, which will only be the dominant business platform if Microsoft makes very sure that it is also the home platform of choice.