One thing to note: Microsoft has always been ‘get it out there and we’ll improve it as we go’. Usually by version 3 or 4, its a pretty good version. Look @ MS Office and Word — remember Lotus 123 and Word Perfect?

So, what does this have to do with Flex? Flex is currently more stable and ActionScript 3.0 is more like a real language (still have issues with overloading constructors, and multi-threading, but those are SMALL issues). I’ve used Flex Builder 3 (I’m familiar with Eclipse too!) as well as Expressions Blend, Expressions Web, and VS 2008. I still find FB3 more ‘integrated’ when working with Flex vs Silverlight. Also, I use WebORB to do the backend (for .NET) and it really has made the work fun and rewarding.

I learned long ago not to get to ‘excited’ by hype. Proof will come with actual apps and market presence (like Flash has right now). I will say MS will catch up — they always do. I just hope Adobe will continue the investment into Flex/Cairngorm and the community. Its why I’m working in Flex right now and still utilizing my .NET/Java experience for backend SOAs.

http://www.onflex.org/ted/2007/04/m-silverlight-vs-adobe-flash-player.php

Steve Jobs: We’re better than you are! We have better stuff.
Bill Gates: You don’t get it, Steve. That doesn’t matter!

Microsoft will never change.

It might be smart to look at what kind of users this 6% of computers (using Mac) is.
We’re talking about lots of designers, developers, artists, all in all, people that use the web a lot and contribute to it. That’s different from the average PC in an average home.

Besides, 6% doesn’t sound like a neglegible small number to me. It’s millions and millions of people!

PS: I’m on a PC with Windows XP.

people using parallels:
I’m one of them, and you want to know why?
I work for Nokia’s Flagship Stores, and my company creates some on-screen applications for user interaction.

The stores’ screens are run by PC machines to display videos.
Arean’t you aware of the fact that Quartz would have been a lot faster in video rendering of H264 contents on mac, rather than DirectWhatever on Windows playing MPEG?
The format is not even native, we had to install codecs…

Being this Nokia project one of the top revenues of my business, I’m forced to deploy my Flash products for the Windows Platform.
What do you think I develop them on? Windows Vista?
YOU have to be fool, sir.

After 11 years of Windows usage, I switched to the mac platform 4 years ago.
Main reasons: a Unix core, a real shell, a stable platform, turning off my laptop once a month or less (while needing to restart the parallels VM xp every now and then. not the Fedora though. that sticks).
I develop little flash, always more focusing on hardware as my business grows.
I’m more than happy with my macs (I own 5) and run XP on parallels because I didn’t decide the technology to be the base of that project.
If it was for me, it would have been Macs.
The reason why our main product BlueSocket is compiled for Windows, is that we created it initially for Nokia.
We’re porting to Os X though, and Linux soon.

the news this morning reported that MS will pull XP Oem off the shelves on jan 2k8.
Do you think it’s a good idea?
that thing is the only remaining strong point in the switch from win to mac.
but I leave this to marketing experts, I’m just a young developer with an eye for (small) business.

ralph, I beg your pardon for this bragging.

ubi de feo
twodotone.com

In this context it does I usually would agree but the context is that Windows based technologies have a larger hurdle to overcome in order to provide “reach” within the Expression Output(s) per say.

Where as Flash Player has supposedly 98% of the worlds computers and “Apollo” is something to be feared.

Point is when you start taking down actual statistics and compare them against the points located in this thread, one can paint a stark reality.

Adoption cycles of Vista are growing, which in turn means WPF is a compelling argument to build to, given it has .XBAP (WPF housed within the browser) Capabilities.

Now given Apollo is the pitch, there’s the notion that X-Platform is a must as – that’s what all the kids are doing now days right?

Well going by that logic, then one has to equate the Apple marketshare going forward, as isn’t that a sales feature of Apollo? comprimise on access to the operating system to make way for wider reach in platforms?

Yet, the Apple marketshare is around 6% and was noted as being on the decline (could pickup next qtr who knows). Given that it’s around the 6% this is a market worth fighting for by all accounts on the Apollo feature sales pitch?

Yet if 110,000 downloads have occured of Apollo Runtime, we’re currently dealing with a minority. Ok so it’s Alpha, there’s more work to be done in this space and when 1.0 hits, look out. So lets assume it tripples the current download rates as we see it today.

Is that still enough marketshare to make Apollo a relevant argument for the reasons why it is a saviour to X-platform thought leadership?

Meanwhile, Vista is being adopted at a wider rate both in PC market but also creeping into the Apple market (folks want fingers in both barrells… thats fine, Vista still gets a sale right? usage of Vista occurs right? reach still stacks in its favour and so on).

Back to Flash, so Flash sits at 98% of the worlds computers in one version or another. Yet, we know that Flash 9 isn’t the 98% its less. So rants like the original post are saying “Don’t build for Windows, as it has a lower reach rate but build for Flash as it has a higher reach rate” right?

So if Flash 9 is below 98% and is more realistically around 70-80% and given that Windows XP is much higher? umm what are we discussing again?

I’m all for Flash for lots of reasons, but sometimes I wonder what the hell is wrong with Flash advocates as they could probably spend more time pushing Adobe harder to make it a stronger marketshare firstly, and secondly work harder to produce easier workflow so discussons like this don’t occur.

Yet, we pick the fight with Microsoft because all the kids are doing it right?

-
Scott Barnes
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft.

You are mixing apples and oranges. OS’s is one thing, applications another. Vista is OS, Apollo is runtime (alpha), so comparison isn’t possible. The point is that Flash player is a powerful toy and Flex is a powerful rad tool for it. So I don’t see why developers wouldn’t embrace them. I think they will, more and more.
Then, Apollo is a revolution. Will it succeed? We’ll see. In the past Java took big part of the enterprise from MS, so there ARE reasons why MS should be scared, I think.
But the main point is that reason for this blog post is a really bad technical comparison and I truly believe that technical comparisons should be made on the neutral ground…
BR, Milan

Using your numbers, it would make more sense to compare the 20% of all computers that DO have Flash9 to the definitely less than 20% of all computers that run Vista. Okay, it doesn’t matter. The only point I want to make is that developer Alpha downloads and worldwide OS-sales are just two completely different things

Fanboi hehehe.

In order to get Apollo traction, you need a greater mass then under 10k developers sustaining the cycles required in order to use it. You furthermore need to grow the FLEX market more in order to entice Apollo into the marketshare per say.

While I hear the same stuff you do man, 98% of the worlds computers have FLASH, 95% of the worlds computers also have Windows. less then 80% of the worlds computers don’t have FLASH 9. Keep it in perspective.

Let’s also get back to basics, how many of the worlds computers have installed Apollo Runtime?
110,000 right? That’s impressive.

20million have bought Windows Vista in the first 2 months.

Which marketshare do you think i’m going to hitch a ride with ?

Ok, lets got another step further. What is the majority of the 98% for example using Flash for? YouTube or great applications like ScrapBlog?

Take another step further, what’s the average RIA look like in Flash? how many users use it etc. Let’s start putting some realistic figures and disection of Flash on the table.

We’ve got around 10k (to be generous, lets round up to 15k FLEX developers world wide. Producing how many actual FLEX applications per month?)

What do you think the stats would likely show for .NET applications say Windows Forms for example would look like?

Windows Vista is exceeding even our own expectations, will this sustain, probably not it may get stagnant or not. It could climb to say 20% for all we know.

Vista is widely reported to be exceeding XP’s sales figures in its mayden voyages. Mac’s are actually on the decline for the first time in 9 months so something’s triggered this. Maybe everyones bought a MAC and using Vista inside it? ( which validates that Vista is still worthwhile to develop to).

Is Microsoft “scared” Apollo? only as scared as we should be with other concepts out there like AJAX or whatever the latest buzz of the month is.

There is no black/white winners here folks, it’s simply down to what consumers want to use, how the use it and when they use it.

Google has its existance in life, just like Yahoo has its?

-
Scott Barnes
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft – Q. The fact I know both Adobe and Microsoft technlogy stack makes me weaker or stronger as a developer?

Obviously everybody has seen MS people often throwing words to the sky about this and that.

the collection of failures cannot even be compared to the successes.
I became a mac user 4 years ago and still need to use XP for some projects (I run it off a mac, of course).
The os is stable enough and I don’t complain.

I haven’t had time to look into apollo yet, but I’ll be glad to download the VM.
a thing that ralph doen’t mention is that the .NET fw is also pushed towards you by the evil updater.
if you keep rubbing something on my face, I’ll take it just not to have you do it again.
except for a Nokia project we work on, I never had the need to use the .NET fw.

do you think I installed MONO to be able to take advantage of this amazing technology?
…

I develop my prototyping in flash because I can do it on mac.
it’s faster, and I don’t have to learn anything nearly similar to VB or related languages.

When Apollo will be more stable, I will go for it to deploy my applications to my clients.
For now I rely on Flash8 and mProjector.
If we need to develop anything more complex, we chose to use C++ and have the most stable solution for commercial projects.

I’m looking forward to see very good uses of Apollo, and sure there won’t be much long to wait (already started).
Anyone seen any use of this MS technology yet?

let the facts speak

And then quickly uninstalled in favor of a stable low-overhead XP install.