
Microsoft weighs in: 'the future of the web is HTML5' - glymor
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/30/microsoft-weighs-in-the-future-of-the-web-is-html5/
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mickeyben
So why are they pushing Silverlight ?

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arethuza
Good question - I have no idea who Silverlight is for. It _might_ make sense
for internal corporate applications - but they don't need to look very pretty
so all the integration with design stuff is irrelevant.

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frou_dh
For developers (developers developers) who like to use .NET. Not sure about
end users.

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_delirium
it's actually pretty nice for that--- with vaguely reasonable effort you can
make the same app run on .NET on the desktop and Silverlight on the browser

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DrSprout
The latest version of the enterprise trash I develop for replaced a mid-90's
Win32 GUI with Silverlight running in a browser... leaving intact the Java
database connection code. When I installed it on my machine I had to reinstall
Java before it would work.

But that's more a testament to the vendor's "now with
$AWESOME_PLATFORM!"-driven software architecture paradigm than any real fault
of Silverlight or Java. (Except that they both appeal to those sorts of
people.)

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lenni
I really do want to believe this guy; that's why I think that it is other
forces within MS that are causing IE snail-speed progress.

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jasonlotito
IE snail-speed progress? The IE9 rending engine is impressive. And the work
being done is much more impressive than with the other browser makers.
Consider the amount of discussion they put out about rounded corners.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/03/19/the-css-
corner-a...](http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/03/19/the-css-corner-about-
css-corners.aspx)

When you look at something like this, you realize that it's not just the
standard that needs to be finalized, but how the result should look. So while
Firefox can say we support rounded borders, the net isn't well thought out.
Browser makers are racing to mark of checkboxes of success. IE9 may not be the
quickest to the block, but it's clear that the IE team isn't just trying to
meet the standards.

Edit: I do want to point out that I think your question is a valid one, and
while they've recently released updates to their browser rather quickly over
the last few years, it feels like all together, they have been slow in
releasing anything really impressive, or not just playing catch up.

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jacobolus
> _the work being done is much more impressive than with the other browser
> makers_

Are you serious? All the other browser vendors also have blogs, on which they
have routinely discussed the details of web rendering for years. How does
Microsoft also adopting this practice within the last year or two make them
unique?

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jasonlotito
> Are you serious? Yes. > All the other browser vendors also have blogs, So?
> What does a blog have to do with proper rendering? > on which they have
> routinely discussed the details of web rendering for years. Great. They talk
> about rendering. > How does Microsoft also adopting this practice within the
> last year or two make them unique? It doesn't. What makes you think it does?

The impressive thing I was referring to was the actual rendering results. To
be fair, I was mostly comparing what IE9 is going to do with what
Chrome/Firefox/etc are doing now, but still. IE9's implementation of something
looks impressive.

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ashirusnw
The dithering of the HTML5 editors has no meant that Microsoft have cemented
the video codec for HTML5 as H264. Had they only bit the bullet and not been
unnecessarily scared of patent issues for Ogg Theora, we could have had a true
open video standard for the future web.

If Google release VP8 as open source and license-free, and HTML5 adopt it as a
baseline, will MS change their mind?

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BrandonM
Of course Microsoft and Apple are endorsing HTML5/H.264; they are part of the
licensing body that stands to profit from H.264 adoption. See
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1306044>

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watty
THIS JUST IN:

The future of HTML4 is HTML5.

