In an April 4 post on Microsofts Silverlight blog,a statement issued jointly by three Microsoft Developer Divisionhonchos set out to explain the companys Web development strategy andits positioning of Silverlight and HTML5. The post, entitled,"Standards-based Web, plug-ins and Silverlight," states that there is noone true tool for all development purposes or scenarios.

Signed by Walid Abu-Hadba, corporatevice president of Developer Platform & Evangelism; Scott Guthrie,corporate vice president of .NET Developer Platform; and S. Somasegar,senior vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, the post has threekey takeaways:

• For plug-in based experiences, we believeSilverlight delivers the richest set of capabilities available todevelopers today, making the choice of Microsoft technologies even morecompelling.
• For Windows Phone development, Silverlight andXNA are the core fundamental building blocks for building richexperiences that take full advantage of Windows Phone.
• HTML5 is a solution for many scenarios, anddevelopers should make the appropriate choice based on applicationneeds, knowing that we have a heritage and a future vision ofsupporting a wide variety of technologies to meet those needs.

Microsofts strategy around Silverlight, and, later, HTML5 hascontinually evolved since the introduction of Silverlight in 2007.Initially positioned as a direct competitor to Adobe Systems Flashtechnology, Silverlight further evolved into an application frameworkand tool for creating and delivering rich Web experiences and became akey tool for developing Windows Phone applications.

Indeed, as the post indicates, two key shifts occurred in theindustry that have caused Microsoft to put a slightly differentemphasis on Silverlight:

First, the world has changed from one in which people used a singledevice (primarily a PC) to one in which they use several, and many ofthe experiences on those devices are Web-enabled in some form orfashion. Given that user experience is now a multi-device (i.e.,cross-browser/cross-platform) experience, standards and reach play amore important role than ever, both for users and developers. Second,the evolution and maturity of Web standards have resulted in HTML5 thatwill support many of those rich scenarios that previously requiredplug-ins. The market momentum behind adoption of HTML5 as the pathforward for broad cross-platform reach continues to gather momentum,and with Internet Explorer 9 Microsoft is chief among those leadingthat charge.

During Microsofts Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2010 last October, Microsoft began to shed more light on the direction the company was taking with Silverlight and HTML5, which caused a ripple of concernin the Microsoft developer community. The company's April 4 post expands on theguidance former Microsoft Server & Tools President Bob Muglia gavelast year.

"Neither plug-ins nor standards-based approaches, however, represent the single answer to client development," Microsofts post says. "In general, weknow developers always want the best of everything, in a single tool,but at the same time recognize that is not a practical way to approachdevelopment. Developers need to make choices and tools will continue toevolve."

Al Hilwa, program director for application development softwareresearch at IDC, said, "To some extent this is the kind of blog theycould have issued prior to last years PDC when their repositioningcame out presumably inadvertently. When Silverlight first came out,Microsoft positioned it as a direct competitor to Flash and presumablymany understood that to mean that Microsoft would put it on everyplatform. As their blog explains correctly, platforms multiplied, makingsuch support costly and complex, and some important ones have turnedout to be closed ecosystems making that impossible."

Summing up his thoughts on the issue, Hilwa added:

"Much of what mighthave required plug-ins can be done with HTML5. There are, however,high-end applications where plug-ins will continue to make sense. Also,plug-ins will always be faster to exploit new capabilities in hardwareand to introduce new capabilities that take advantage of ever-improvingperformance. I think the blog is highlighting that newinvestments in HTML5 tooling are coming from Microsoft, and explainingwhy Silverlight may not continue to be the star of the show it has beenthe last couple of years."

Darryl K. Taft is a writer for eWEEK.

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