AIR VS Silverlight?

February 26, 2008 9:04 AM
Related Categories: Web Dev

Ok, I admit I am not very educated on Silverlight, but isn't this Techcrunch blog post comparing two different kinds of products?  I would think Silverlight VS Flex or Flash, but AIR? 

Adobe flew the guy out to the release event... you would think he knew the difference after that.  Or if I am wrong maybe Adobe should have flown me out so I would know the difference :-)

"There’s no arguing that AIR is highly capable, but so is Microsoft’s Silverlight. Adobe and Microsoft have entered a war of attrition, where like HD DVD vs Blu-ray one will eventually come out on top. Having said that both may well happily co-exist side by side for years to come, but history shows that eventually the market will pick a favorite."


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I read the post as well and noticed the confusion.
I think he meant to compare WPF to AIR since Silverlight is really compared to Flash.
A small slip for most sites but a pretty big slip for a site dedicated to tech.
# Posted By Mark | 2/26/08 10:15 AM
Thanks for the heads up. For some reason a lot of journalists don't get that AIR != Silverlight. I can't figure out why they keep making the comparison. I just emailed Duncan to ask him about it.

=Ryan
rstewart@adobe.com
# Posted By Ryan Stewart | 2/26/08 11:51 AM
Silverlight = Flash Player wanna-be... I was at a recent SwANH meeting where the Microsoft Silverlight Evangelist (yup, that's a real person) stated that an RIA was a rich app that ran in a browser only. Funny. He also stated, many times, that Silverlight 1.0 was nothing more than a media player (serious), and that 2.0 was the REAL release of something useful. Having recently participated in the Microsoft PhizzPop Design Challenge (UxD & Silverlight contest) we got a an in-depth look at the toolset. At this point it is neither a competitor to AIR (because it's a browser plug-in), nor Flex/Flash (because it takes thousands of lines of code to do what I can do in Flex/Flash with 50 lines). You can't develop in Silverlight - you have to use Expressions. Silverlight is simply a player. WPF is another story altogether. And there is room for two in this space. We've barely touched what is possible. Peace. -t
# Posted By Thomas Obrey | 2/28/08 10:14 AM
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