Here is why I think the ‘death’ of Microsoft is not just exaggerated, but a total myth.

 XBOX revenues were over $20B (and are now competing with Windows total revenues), Microsoft Azure (at one point a distant 5th place contender) is the second largest Cloud vendor (not just cloud infrastructure – but cloud marketplace included) – and BING is the second most popular search engine (though granted – by a huge margin).  

 While I wouldn’t call BING a superhit, both XBOX and Azure are! They exemplify what Microsoft excels at – making complex user interfaces dummy- proof and FUN to use. The Linux and java world user interfaces (aesthetically speaking) still belong to 1990 – and have yet to evolve beyond that.

 And finally, it looks like Microsoft is able to recognize defeat and move on – IE is being retired (Microsoft was LAST in realizing that no one was using IE except for downloading chrome and firefox)….These are all positive signs…IMO, not only is Microsoft NOT going away…they are winning in the most competitive tech fights of the future (Cloud computing, big data implementations, Entertainment devices…).

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Houston just seems to be a hotbed of Microsoft centric development. Part of the reason is that .NET is one of the most scalable offerings out there – especially in the SOA and Cloud computing domains.

Several Oil and Gas companies are headquartered in Houston. Their software initiatives encompass both web and desktop applications. And large SOA integrations. Ideally, they would like a  common technology platform to build their desktop apps, their web apps, their SOA apps and their 3rd party integrations. Microsoft .NET provides them with a rich platform to do just that.

WIth that in mind, .NET architects are in demand in Houston.

About the Author

Anuj Varma is a .NET architect with experience in the Houston oil and gas industry. He has been fortunate to work (as a .NET architect ) on some of the largest .NET initiatives across Texas – including Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin. He continues to stay updated on his .NET architect skills – both through hands-on project work and training with established Microsoft MVPs.

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What does a technology leader do when they come up with the idea of the decade? One that would revolutionize the way people develop web applications?

Abandon it of course. Why did Microsoft consider this, of all its  myriad of products, as not worth supporting? Partly because they saw HTML5 as becoming the new ‘web UI’ standard. And perhaps felt that they were fighting a losing battle. Except that it wasn’t !

Not only was (is) Silverlight way more advanced (and richer in capabilities) than HTML5 and Flash, it is richer without requiring intensive lines of code.  This post will try and explain (to Microsoft – who shouldn’t need explaining to), why Silverlight support is sorely needed.

Microsoft has been accused of lagging – rather than leading revolutions (especially when it comes to web technologies). Internet Explorer appeared way too late and  (after 11 releases) is still not even in the top 3 browsers in terms of performance and usability (Chrome, Firefox and Safari win over it in all metrics – memory footprint, speed of page loads, search shortcuts etc.)

For once, they actually were set to be the leader in something. And something big. Something that would change the way websites looked and felt for the next decade. What is possible to build with a Silverlight website is the stuff of dreams.

HTML5 versus Silverlight

I would like to see HTML5 come close to the full runtime capabilities of the .net platform ( which is what the silverlight plugin provides ). Multithreading, asynchronous page loads ( and web service calls), http and non-http bindings to external services – all with a few lines of code and some configuration files. I’m not even going to touch on the streaming capabilities of silverlight or the auto resizing , auto scaling, auto aligning – features of Silverlight controls. Try building an HTML5 app with controls that correctly resize as you switch from single to dual monitors.
Yes -with proper toolkits, possibly HTML5 will do some of those things in the future. Silverlight already does. It’s like having all the requisite toolkits in one, very small footprint browser plugin.

Adobe Flash versus Silverlight

Flash is the current industry leader in rich content browser plugins. Their platform does take web development to a new level. Which is why the entire world jumped on to it. Flash changed the way websites looked after years of boring HTML pages.

Silverlight was all set to do the same thing. Take web look and feel to a whole new level. But more than look and feel, it would do something that Flash could not come even close to. By including all the runtime capabilities of (the already mature) .NET platform, Silverlight would offer unprecedented coding possibilities for web applications. Things that were hitherto difficult (if not impossible to do) – would all be available out of the box to Silverlight programmers. Asynchronous web page capabilities, multi threading – allowing for super responsive UI controls,  WCF capabilities of talking to any type of external service – whether WS* compliant or not – whether HTTP based or not. All of this with the least amount of lines of code – and some configuration files.

To build an equally capable website in Flash would require far more code – and would still not have all the capabilities that are built into Silverlight.

Prototyping Tools based on Silverlight (and WPF)

Expression Blend and SketchFlow offered a super interactive (and awesome looking) prototyping experience. Not only could a developer throw together a web page’s interaction (button clicks, menu navigation etc.) quickly, a customer could interact with the exact same prototype and add his/her comments and feedback. All this in real-time.

And all with spiffy looking web controls. Perhaps the greatest advantage to prototyping with these tools is that one can actually use most of the prototype screens to begin development. Unlike most prototyping tools, SketchFlow uses actual WPF and Silverlight controls. While Microsoft has still not officially abandoned SketchFlow and Expression Blend, they seem to be offering ‘works on this OS and this type of product only’ releases. Expression Blend  can only be used to Windows 8 store apps. Once again, these are no ordinary tools – they would have marked a new era in prototyping tools – with super look and feel – as well as unsurpassed user-interaction capabilities. One can only hope that these tools are not completely abandoned by Microsoft.

Summary

I am too bummed out to write a conclusion on the death of Silverlight. Microsoft is clearly showing signs of brain fog (skewed, cloudy decision making). First, with the purchase of SKYPE (all they got for $8 billion was an additional installation screen asking if you would like to install skype on your windows box).  Instead of revolutionizing the look and feel of tomorrow’s web applications, Microsoft is choosing to let HTML5 accept that exciting leadership role.

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‘If you don’t have an iPhone…well, you don’t have an iPhone’ Apple commericial – reminded me of Avis’ classic slogan We try harder. In college, we learnt that the Avis tagline (We try harder) was virtually unbeatable. What would a competitor say in response? We try even harder? We try harder still? Essentially, Avis nailed it. As did Apple.

Not so much Microsoft. With their continued weak attempts at getting Apple back with their ‘I’m a PC’ to their equally awful Windows Vista commercials, it seems there is not a single memorable commercial that Microsoft has put out over the last two decades.

It is certainly not for lack of money – they fall in the same boat as Apple and Google when it comes to having cash to splurge on getting their name out. If anything, it comes down to a lack of ‘imagination’. A lack of the ‘coolness’ factor. And that missing X-Factor doesn’t just affect Microsoft’s commercials. It affects bigger things – such as bright young 20 something programmers deciding whether to go work for Apple, Google or Microsoft.

Come on Microsoft, this should be a no brainer. Cool commercials are about winning the hearts and minds of the next generation of coders. So far, only Bing commercials are somewhat approaching cool (even they leave a lot of room for improvement).

How hard can it be to find an ‘idea-geek’ for churning out cool commercial ideas?   I’m available if you have the time to talk!

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The biggest reason cited is that Microsoft needs a competitive offering to Google Voice and Apple’s emerging communication platform, Facetime. In other words, Microsoft got scared by Google’s lead once again.

Even if that may be true, that lead (Google’s) is in a non-core area for Microsoft. Microsoft is – first and foremost – a software company – one that has (finally) started churning out quality products.

Quality Product Exhibit A:

Microsoft’s .NET application platform has made serious headways into hitherto IBM (and Oracle) dominated enterprise software space. A space that is bigger than $100 Billion annually – and growing.

Microsoft took on one of it’s chief competitors (IBM) in the enterprise software space – and started crushing it through offering a superior suite of products. And as far as making in roads into this lucrative space, Microsoft was just getting started.

The Enterprise Software Space

Wouldn’t this $8B be better spent consolidating and locking in it’s leadership position in this enterprise software space? If I were Microsoft, I would want to do everything in my power to take out J2EE – and replace it with .NET. Not just because it was a product made by my company – but because it was a vastly superior product – positioned in a highly profitable market.

Instead of building on my lead, it looks like I am getting distracted by a competitor’s lead in a totally unrelated area.  A service that is only tangentially related to my core business.

SUMMARY

Come on Microsoft – focus on what you do best! Software and Software tools – not VoIP or video conferencing. The enterprise software market is still a $100 billion market and growing – and you only have a small share of it. You own a winning suite of products in the space – products that can easily win you the entire market – if you chose to put your cash power behind it.

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