

Microsoft Says Silverlight Installed More Than Firefox, Safari and Chrome Combined - TomOfTTB
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/18/microsoft-says-silverlight-installed-more-than-firefox-safari-and-chrome-combined/

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TallGuyShort
I tried installing SilverLight a week ago. After installation and a restart,
my browser informed me that SilverLight was not installed. I repeated the
process with several browsers and several computers, and never got it to work.
So I was told +/- 10 times that SilverLight was installed, when in reality it
wasn't, and when I have no intention of ever trying to use it again.

Now I wonder how many other people that's happened to...

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Mintz
Considering Microsoft.com is one of the most-trafficked websites on the
internet (Currently #15 <http://alexa.com/topsites>), and considering you're
required to install Silverlight before MS lets you browse it... yeah, it'll
have a high adoption rate.

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TomOfTTB
Though my first response was to say BS on thinking about it I actually believe
them on this one. As the article points out they landed a few high profile
events which got a lot of people to install the plug in (albeit an earlier
version than 2.0 which is the first worthwhile version imho)

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect them to over take Flash any time soon. But
I think this gives Microsoft Developers enough incentive to use Silverlight
rather than jumping ship to Flash (which is much harder for a .net deverloper
to pick up). In that aspect I think this is a victory.

For better or worse the great thing about being Microsoft is you just need to
hang on to what you already have to be successful

~~~
noodle
they also had a stranglehold over the olympic games. i would've thought that
this would be one of the biggest installation drivers.

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ZeroGravitas
Isn't the competition here Silverlight vs. Flash. And isn't Flash installed on
more than _IE_ , Firefox, Safari and Chrome combined?

(Note that sounds ridiculous, but I'm fairly certain it's true)

So, given the competition is Flash, why the jab at other browsers? Or is
Microsoft declaring war on the open web?

(edit: Somewhat surprised that Techcrunch actually makes the same points, I'd
commented before reading it)

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bcx
Did they pass out silverlight via Windows update?

