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- In all of the officially released statements concerning the upcoming Windows 8, there has not been one, not one, prepared statement that even mentions the future role of .NET, WPF, or Silverlight in Windows 8, contrary to all of the statements concerning the integral role the new HTML5 platform will play. Only after Windows President S. Sinofsky was asked what role Silverlight played in Windows 8, was it stated that it would continue to run in IE and on the desktop. Clearly then, our concern is not that these terrific platforms will be terminated, but that they might be left to ‘dry on the vine.’
- In an officially released video dubbed “Building Windows 8” by Jensen Harris, Director of PM of Windows User Experience, Jensen clearly portrays a dichotomy of apps that will exist on Windows 8: 1) Apps that are repeatedly called “Windows 8 Apps,” which he speaks of as “Web-connected and web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript,” and 2) “Existing windows apps.” WPF / Silverlight apps seem to be precluded from the “Windows 8 Apps.” We do not want Silvelight and WPF apps to be relegated to a “classic” (if even a “legacy”) category, while we hope to see a paradigm of “Windows 8 HTML5 Apps” exist alongside of “Windows 8 WPF/Silverlight Apps,” both of which will constitute the front-facing, cool new look of Windows 8.
- The MIX 2011 conference focused almost exclusively on HTML5 technologies, with little focus on Silverlight.
- A new developer conference called BUILD has been announced in place of what would have been PDC for September (www.buildwindows.com). Again we see no mention whatsoever of WPF, SL, or .NET: “Go behind the scenes and learn all about the new app model that allows you to create powerful new apps. All while retaining the ability to use your existing apps. Web-connected and web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript [that] have access to the power of the PC.” While the commitment is made there that .NET apps (“your existing apps”) will not of course be terminated, one is lead to believe that WPF/SL apps do not have a key role to play in the new Windows 8, front-facing model.
- Perhaps of lesser significance, but the following raises questions: “When Scott Guthrie, former corporate vice president of the .NET Platform at Microsoft, left the Developer Division [even on the very day of the announcement of this “new” Windows 8 app “platform”] to head up a new Windows Azure business unit, I was more than concerned… ” (M. Desmond, The Sinofsky Shuffle, http://visualstudiom...ra_guthrie.aspx).
But, let’s investigate a bit more.
September of last year former Microsoft Silverlight Product Manager Scott Barnes made a series of posts on twitter on the future of WPF and Silverlight:
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So.. after a week in Microsoft HQ etc.. i have a lot of inside info that just basically puts into question the future of #Silverlight #wpf
Right now there’s a faction war inside Microsoft over HTML5 vs Silverlight. oh and WPF is dead.. i mean..it kind of was..but now.. funeral.
HTML5 is the replacement for WPF.. IE team want to fork the HTML5 spec by bolting on custom windows APi’s via JS/HTML5
Right now there’s a faction war inside Microsoft over HTML5 vs Silverlight. oh and WPF is dead.. i mean..it kind of was..but now.. funeral.
HTML5 is the replacement for WPF.. IE team want to fork the HTML5 spec by bolting on custom windows APi’s via JS/HTML5
He goes on to explain:
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Silverlight and WPF are something in which a lot of teams internally just aren’t fans of and has a variety of reasons attached but the main one that used to **** the Window’s teams off was that the notion that the CLR should be cross-platform is in many ways an attack point on Windows adoption ….
What I am seeing today is that WPF has lost the support it could have had from the start in favor of Silverlight. This in turn has put Silverlight out in front as the preferred UX option in the .NET stack but the problem with Silverlight is that it has a limited amount of features that most dev’s want and furthermore it’s still being plagued with issues around ubiquity….
On one hand, it’s pretty widely known within the company that WPF has been ear marked for death for quite some time and had it not had such prolific ubiquity or ISV’s that build software used by many on it (Autodesk 3DSMAX, Visual Studio, Expression etc) it would have been taken out back and shot long ago. It simply is too hard to kill, so the only way Microsoft to date knows how is to either spend majority of its focus on convincing developers that Silverlight is the better option and/or reduce the noise around WPF altogether hoping that others will pick up on the subtle tones that it’s better you don’t adopt but under the Smokey hazed veil of the a-typical response “It depends”.
WPF has no investment, it’s kept together by a skeleton crew and its evangelism / community efforts have little to no funding attached to it. It’s dead, the question now is how is the corpse going to be buried and no amount of cheer leading will change that outcome in the near future….
What if, you could take JavaScript and make it faster and easier to develop against whilst at the same time leveraging a basic UX language like HTML5/CSS and in turn create desktop applications? It can be done and if you were to bake in specific API’s within Internet Explorer itself, it can also provide you capabilities to ensure that Windows is a chosen platform of the future especially given it has proven time and time again that it can resell itself in rapid succession (ie: see Windows 7 sales)….
HTML5 and Silverlight can’t co-exist within the company and no matter how many blog posts on “It depends” you produce, customers want answers that are direct and to the point – even if they don’t agree with you, but knowing where you stand is important.
What I am seeing today is that WPF has lost the support it could have had from the start in favor of Silverlight. This in turn has put Silverlight out in front as the preferred UX option in the .NET stack but the problem with Silverlight is that it has a limited amount of features that most dev’s want and furthermore it’s still being plagued with issues around ubiquity….
On one hand, it’s pretty widely known within the company that WPF has been ear marked for death for quite some time and had it not had such prolific ubiquity or ISV’s that build software used by many on it (Autodesk 3DSMAX, Visual Studio, Expression etc) it would have been taken out back and shot long ago. It simply is too hard to kill, so the only way Microsoft to date knows how is to either spend majority of its focus on convincing developers that Silverlight is the better option and/or reduce the noise around WPF altogether hoping that others will pick up on the subtle tones that it’s better you don’t adopt but under the Smokey hazed veil of the a-typical response “It depends”.
WPF has no investment, it’s kept together by a skeleton crew and its evangelism / community efforts have little to no funding attached to it. It’s dead, the question now is how is the corpse going to be buried and no amount of cheer leading will change that outcome in the near future….
What if, you could take JavaScript and make it faster and easier to develop against whilst at the same time leveraging a basic UX language like HTML5/CSS and in turn create desktop applications? It can be done and if you were to bake in specific API’s within Internet Explorer itself, it can also provide you capabilities to ensure that Windows is a chosen platform of the future especially given it has proven time and time again that it can resell itself in rapid succession (ie: see Windows 7 sales)….
HTML5 and Silverlight can’t co-exist within the company and no matter how many blog posts on “It depends” you produce, customers want answers that are direct and to the point – even if they don’t agree with you, but knowing where you stand is important.
Given the statements coming out of Microsoft recently, it certainly looks like Scott Barnes was correct in his assessment of Microsoft’s infighting. And, in the end, HTML5 and Javascript won out as Microsoft’s new vision of the future.
