[Macworld]

Post your comments for Silverlight for iPhone next? Not quite, says Ballmer here

[solipsism]

That is BS. MS had Silverlight out at teh same time they had a Windows version out.
If MS charges nothing for it then Apple will get 30% of zero. As usual, Ballmer is trying to give it a negative spin.

[leicaman]

I find it incredibly hypocritical that Ballmer, who runs Microsoft that charges per-client licenses to hook up to their servers, to question Apple's economic motives. A company that sells server software with unlimited clients.
The man truly has no sense of just how credibility-challenged he sounds whenever he speaks about Apple or its products. Does he really think the rest of the world is so stupid?

[solipsism]

In MS defense, Apple has such a small server marketshare that they have to be aggressive in their licensing.

[bynkii]

yeah...I mean, why would Ballmer do something stupid like say "I'm going to withhold commenting until I've had a chance to look at the details"

[elCapiton]

Apple hosts all your applications and looks after the credit card transactions for that 30%. They also put your application in their directory making it easier for people to find it. If you want to give something away for free they still do all that and don't charge you anything. I think it would work differently for a Safari plugin but they could work something out.

What I find a bit strange about yesterday's announcements is seeing the iPhone play OpenGL games at 30 fps (which seems artificially capped to me but just an observation), yet they say it can't play Flash at all. I don't really care about Flash support personally but I find it hard to believe that Flash could be so much more bloated that it runs slower than those games do.

[imdylbert]

I really don't think that it's because flash is so much more bloated. Something i read in the last few days indicated that it's because the mobile version of flash player in essence sucks, and they would need to develop a totally new version to run on the iphone. not, of course, that i'm saying they shouldn't be doing this, but that's the reasoning from what i understand.

[Steve_S]

I'm not quite sure why people want Silverlight for the iPhone. This is another Microsoft proprietary technology that hasn't yet gained any real traction outside of Microsoft's own web site. It's not an internet standard. Apple is more closely aligned with internet standards and I see that as a good thing. I wouldn't mind the iPhone having Java support, but that's another issue. If Apple is going to pursue non-standards, they would be better off working on Flash than Silverlight at least for the time being.

[jamus]

"The company said this week that Silverlight is logging about 1.5 million downloads per day, which includes downloads spurred by Microsoft running Silverlight on its own Web sites and for company Webcasts."
Thank you MacWorld for at least trying to put some of those downloads in perspective. How many of those downloads were from users that said "wow, I really want to see what that Silverlight can do so let me go out and download it" vs those that are presented with a "Install Silverlight" button on a website and just click it not having any idea what they are doing. Microsoft is basically trying to tie anything and everything they can in to Silverlight so users must install it : Microsoft Update site (in beta now), upcoming Olympic coverage, MIX presentations, etc...
One particular annoying instance is with MediaSite. Our company uses MediaSite for online presentations and it is horrible on a Mac. They announced a huge improvement for Macs with their new version which requires Silverlight. However to even get more info on the new version requires you to install Silverlight just to see what Silverlight can do! Aaargh. It would be much better to let people know what it can do and THEN give them the option of installing it if it seems to be something useful.
I just do not like the idea of Microsoft using tricks and tie-ins to claim Silverlight download numbers. The last thing I want is yet one more thing running on user machines. Oh, and if you thought Flash ads were bad, just wait till Silverlight get enough market penetration and they unleash those. At least the AdBlock devs will have some job security out of it. :)

[elCapiton]

I totally agree about why the numbers are that high. I installed it just because of that very reason but haven't come across any sites other than MS that uses it.

[kingjr3]

There is always that little known site that is very popular in the summer months - http://www.mlb.com

[jamus]

Oh yeah, you are right on that one. MLB will drive the downloads through the roof for sure and they will have more numbers to claim (even though Flash video would probably been fine for that site).

The next thing you know, they will have the "To view this content you'll need to download the new Silverlight plug-in" on the Microsoft.com homepage... They have to control more of the web before it slips through their fingers.

[mwheeler]

Hey, Ballmer...

Apparently it's hard to stretch for those pieces of FUD sometimes, huh?

[jamus]

Ars has a snippet about the Silverlight ad situation:
http://arstechnica.c...obe-on-its-toes
"In addition to Silverlight-specific features, Microsoft claimed that the Silverlight 2 SDK was great for providing advertising options for businesses. DoubleClick was present to back this claim with an example of how video-based advertising could be tracked in a Silverlight environment."
I can imagine they are drooling over the possibility of more heavily scripted ads. Can't wait for that one.