Now I'm not a huge fan of Flash and other rich webpage technologies mainly because they are mostly used unnecessarily for graphics and animations which don't really benefit anyone. Turning sites into something resembling a slow to download TV advert and reducing browser compatibility is something we can all do without; however one cant ignore the fact that sometimes rich browser technologies really are necessary. For example at the moment I am editing this blog entry in a Javascript based rich text editor called TinyMCE; without it editing my blog online would be considerably more painful.

With the whole Web 2.0 thing now taking off to new heights many people are expecting more and more functionality from the Internet, just looking around Googles products gives a good feel for it with Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc. Unfortunately HTML and XHTML on their own dont provide enough functionality to implement these things which leaves us looking for add-on products which do. Currently there are a few options out there each with their own pros and cons such as Java, ActiveX, Flash, etc. but in my opinion there is nothing which really solves all the problems completely leaving a big whole in the market for something new.

The new boy on the block...

Meet Silverlight which is Microsofts take on a web browser application framework. Starting out with releases for IE, FireFox and Safari on both Windows and OSX (with a Linux version developed with Novell in the pipeline) unlike previous attempts from Microsoft it sounds like this could actually be an interesting package. Additionally because its based on the .NET framework the vast array of .NET compatible languages are available to construct your application; C++, Visual Basic, C#, J#, IronPython, IronRuby, F#, JScript, PowerShell, etc.; theres something for everyone.

Are we looking at the future? Who knows but if I were the competition I know I'd be worried.

Posted by Daniel: 9:31, Fri 28th Sep 2007