Category Archives: adobe

.net, adobe, microsoft, silverlight

Leaving Las Vegas: Mix09 wrap-up

I’m heading back to London after 3 days at Microsoft’s Mix09 conference in Las Vegas. I took the opportunity to ask a few delegates what they thought. One thing that everyone seemed to love was SketchFlow, a new feature of Expression Blend which enables designers to sketch out design ideas, distribute them for discussion and annotation, collect responses, and export the results to Word to create a report or proposal. It looks like SketchFlow has been influenced by Bill Buxton, who gave a keynote at Mix, since it embodies one of his key ideas, that design ideas should not look too finished as that inhibits the response.

There was also enthusiasm for Silverlight 3.0, with its numerous new features including out-of-browser support. Several Adobe folk were at Mix sizing up the competition; one was Mike Downey who commented:

I’m really impressed by how much Microsoft has gotten done with this whole platform so quickly. They’re catching up really fast. #mix09

It’s true that Silverlight is maturing with remarkable speed, and many of the developers I spoke to were using it or planning to use it.

That said, we are really talking about Microsoft platform people, most from a developer background. I got some insight into what Microsoft is up against chatting to some design students and a lecturer on the bus to the airport. Microsoft sponsored their visit to Mix in an attempt to get them interested. They all use both Macs and Adobe tools; and the lecturer said to me, “we already get the students to install 7 different pieces of software for the courses we run; why should I add two more (meaning, I think, Expression Blend and Visual Studio)? The Mac issue is huge; there is some work being done to support Silverlight design on the Mac, but it is rudimentary in comparison to Blend.

The sessions on ASP.NET MVC were well attended and of the developers I spoke to, those who grasp what it does are delighted with it and intend to use it – several had evolved their own ASP.NET frameworks out of frustration with Web Forms. It appears though that Microsoft didn’t pitch ASP.NET MVC in a way that communicated well with developers not already familiar with it. Some had attended sessions but still didn’t really grok what it does.

Mix day one, with the Buxton/Guthrie keynote, went down better than day two, which had the IE8 launch and Deborah Adler presenting her research and commercial success designing medicine bottles – interesting but over-long in a web conference. IE8, which was a highlight of Mix08, didn’t make much impact here as everyone already knew all about it, and it no longer looks so impressive one year on, even though it is a big advance on IE7.

Windows Azure didn’t appear to make much impression here, though there is relief that SQL Data Services is getting full relational features. I attended a UK round table on Azure with the other UK journalists who made it out here, Jon Honeyball, Simon Bisson and Mary Branscombe. I observed that Azure is widely misunderstood or not understood, that the follow-up since PDC has been poor, and that the web site relies too much on videos and is confusing to navigate; the early access system based on developer tokens is also problematic. I reckon Microsoft needs to do more work on communicating what Azure is about, if it is to win any mindshare from other cloud contenders.

Still, overall this was a good Mix; one delegate said it was the best Microsoft conference he’d ever attended. The wi-fi worked. The conference layout is good for networking and the warm atmosphere was not just a consequence of the desert air.

By the way – Mix10 has been announced, same place, March 15 – 17, 2010.

adobe, flash, internet, silverlight, web authoring

RIA plug-in stats: Flash dominates

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I’ve just come across riastats.com which has statistics on which RIA (Rich Internet Application) plug-ins are installed on which browser.

The stats are from a relatively small sample: it claims to have analysed 1.5 million browsers across 42 sites at the time of writing.

The headline: Flash is on over 97% of browsers; but only 52% are at version 10. Java is on just under 75%, while Silverlight can only muster 20% penetration.

I also noticed that Firefox (25%) users are more likely to have Silverlight than IE (20%). Maybe all those locked-down corporate desktops.

Another snippet: less than 30% of Linux users have Sun’s Java plug-in installed.

Microsoft can take some comfort from the direction of the graph. In December 2008 only 15% of browsers had Silverlight. That’s pretty fast growth.

Still, the bottom line is that if you want to be fairly sure that your users have nothing to install in order to view your RIA content, use Flash. But stick to version 9.

.net, adobe, google, iphone, microsoft, ruby, silverlight, software development, web authoring

Programming language trends: Flash up, AJAX down?

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I’m fascinated by the O’Reilly reports on the state of the computer book market in 2008, particularly the one relating to programming languages.

Notable facts and speculations:

C# is the number one language, overtaking Java (which is down 12%), and was consistently so throughout 2008. Although the .NET platform is no longer new and exciting, I’m guessing this reflects Microsoft’s success in corporate development, plus the fact that the language is changing fast enough to stimulate book purchases. Absolute growth is small though: just 1%.

Objective-C is growing massively (965%). That’s probably stimulated by iPhone app development more than anything else. It’s a perfect topic for a programming book, since the platform is important and popular, and attracting developers who were previously ignorant of Objective-C.

ActionScript is growing (33%). That’s Adobe’s success in establishing Flex and the Flash platform.

PHP is up 3%. I’m not surprised; it’s usually the P in LAMP, everyone’s favourite free and open source web platform. That said, the online documentation and community support for PHP is so good that a book is less necessary than for some other languages.

JavaScript is down 24%. I’m a little surprised, as JavaScript is still a language everyone has to grapple with to some degree. It may be a stretch; but I wonder if this is a symptom of AJAX losing developer mindshare to Flash/Flex (ActionScript) and maybe Silverlight (C#)? Another factor is that JavaScript is not changing much; last year’s JavaScript book is still good enough.

Visual Basic is down 15%. Exactly what I would expect; slow-ish decline but still popular.

Ruby is down 51%. This is a surprise; though it was well up in 2007 so you could be kind and describe this as settling. The problem with Ruby though is lack of a major sponsor; plus the migration from PHP to Ruby that seemed possible a couple of years ago just has not happened. It may be intimidating to casual developers who find PHP more approachable; plus of course, Ruby probably is not installed on your low-cost shared web hosting package.

Python is down 14%. Google sponsors Python, in that it is the language of App Engine, but apparently this has not been enough to stimulate grown in book sales. I guess App Engine is still not mainstream; or maybe there just aren’t enough good Python books out there.*

It will be interesting to see the 2009 report in a year or so. Meanwhile, I’m off to write an Objective C tutorial (joke!).

*Update: I was reading the charts too quickly; it looks as if the percentages above are only for the last quarter; the annual figures are similar except that Python actually grew over the year as a whole.

adobe, cloud computing, flash, internet, microsoft, multimedia, silverlight, software, software development, Uncategorized, web authoring

How will Microsoft make money from Silverlight?

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Indeed, will it do so? I like Silverlight a lot; though I appreciate that to a Flash developer it may seem pointless. It does a lot of stuff right: small download, powerful layout language, cross-platform (with caveats), rich media, fast just-in-time compiled code.

Still, what intrigues me is how Silverlight has come from nowhere to what seems to be a central position in Microsoft’s product strategy in just a few years. What’s the business case? Or is it just that someone high up experienced a moment of horror – “Flash is taking over in web media and browser-hosted applications, we gotta do something”?

Let’s eliminate a few things. It’s not the design and developer tools. Making a profit from tools is hard, with tough competition both from open source, and from commercial companies giving away tools to promote other products. I don’t know how Microsoft’s figures look for the Expression range, but I’m guessing they bleed red, irrespective of their quality. Visual Studio may just about be a profit centre (though the Express series is free); but Silverlight is only a small corner of what it does.

Nor is it the runtime. Adobe can’t charge for Flash; Microsoft can’t charge for Silverlight.

I asked Twitter for some ideas. Here are some of the responses:

migueldeicaza @timanderson, my guesses:WinServer built-in-steaming;Strengthening .NET ecosystem, and client-server interactions;Keep share in RIA space

IanBlackburn @timanderson Isn’t Silverlight going to become the "Microsoft Client" and central to s+s?  Apps built with it can be charged in many way

harbars @timanderson no doubt with annoying adverts

mickael @timanderson isn’t silverlight a defensive move against other RIA platforms (like Adobe’s one)? They might only plan selling developmt tools

jonhoneyball @timanderson In the long term by hosting tv stations’ internet traffic and providing the charging/hosting/download/player model.

jonhoneyball @timanderson ie azure cloud + silverlight + someone elses content = ms revenue. no, it wont work, but its not unexpected ms-think.

jonhoneyball @timanderson why no work? price war to come on cloud host/delivery etc Someone will host BBC for free. Game over

There are two main themes here. One is media streaming; as the Internet takes over an increasing proportion of broadcasting and media delivery (note recent comments on Spotify) Microsoft plans to profit from server-side services. The challenges here are that there may be little money to be made; Adobe has a firm grip on this already; and Apple will do its own thing.

The other is about applications. This is the bit that makes sense to me. Microsoft knows that the era of Windows desktop clients, while not over, is in long-term decline; and that applies to applications like Office as well as custom business applications. Silverlight is a strong client platform for web-based alternatives. So I’m voting for Ian Blackburn’s comment above: it’s the Microsoft Client.

If that’s right, we’ll see Silverlight embed itself into more and more of Microsoft’s products, from desktop to server, just as Adobe is gradually remaking everything it does around Flash.

The difference is that Microsoft has far more invested in the status quo: selling Windows and Office. I’m guessing that there are heated internal battles around things like Web Office. The briefing I attended at the 2008 PDC on Office Web Applications was fascinating in respect of its ambivalence; for every web feature shown, the presenters wanted to emphasise that desktop Office was still the thing you should have.

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adobe, apple, internet, iphone, software development, web authoring

What’s the deal with Flash and the iPhone?

An brief comment from Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen quoted by Bloomberg suggests that Apple and Adobe are actually working on putting Flash on the iPhone:

It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating. The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.

Deliver what? I’d have thought it would be straightforward for Adobe to implement some level of Flash on the iPhone. There are at least two reasons though why Apple might be blocking it:

1. Flash is a client runtime. Apple may feel that allowing applications to run within Flash could threaten its App Store lock-in and market.

2. One of the frustrations of Flash on devices is that it lags behind the version of Flash available on desktops, and is often hard to update. That’s frustrating for users. Apple may want to address that by giving iPhone users an experience that comes close to that on the desktop.

So what is Apple waiting for Adobe to deliver? Better mobile performance and usability? Or some other piece that might address the first of the above concerns?

The outcome of this has a significance that goes beyond the iPhone. Although iPhone and iTouch users form only a small proportion of those browsing the web, it is an influential group and one that will grow. The lack of Flash support makes pure HTML and JavaScript solutions more attractive to web developers.

If anyone from Adobe can give us more insight into what it is working on with Apple, I’m keen to know.

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adobe, flash, software development

Adobe Flex community at odds over Fx prefix, lack of collaboration

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Some members of the community around Adobe’s open source Flex SDK are fuming at a decision made by Adobe back in October 2008, to prefix the new skinnable components in the forthcoming “Gumbo” release with Fx. This means you can disambiguate old and new components such as Button without relying on namespaces. On the other hand, what is wrong with namespaces? The issue has provoked a lot of debate, partly on the merits or otherwise of the Fx prefix, and partly on the open source development process itself. The Fx decision was announced rather than discussed. Simeon Bateman, who is now all-but proposing an Fx-less fork of the SDK, says:

Creating an open source project is about openness in planning and development. Not just about giving people the right to do with the code what they will. And this part of the Flex project is a complete failure … The current Flex SDK team has about 20 developers and they are fiendishly working on the code for the next version of Flex, version 4 code named Gumbo. And they are doing all that development in private, behind closed doors with nothing but commit logs for us to know what is happening. This is an open source project and we have no idea what is going coming or what the timelines are for milestones. What the hell are the milestones?

Manish Jethani argues that Fx is a sign of haste and corporate pressure:

Even though Flex is an open source project, it is very much run per corporate interests. In a truly open source project like the Linux kernel, there are no deadlines — it’s ready when it’s ready. That’s how research departments work. But Flex is no research, Flex is business. Why, wouldn’t the ‘Fx’ prefix give Flex Builder yet another advantage over competing IDEs? Think about it.

Ben Clinkinbeard has created a survey to allow Flex developers to express their opinions, though as a commenter notes, it is more of an objection petition than a survey.

Adobe responded with an online open meeting to discuss this and other matters which took place this morning – you can play the recording online. It may have been frustrating for those who felt strongly about it, since after presenting the reasons for the change the presenters deferred further discussion to the online forum. As far as I can tell, the Fx decision is unlikely to change.

Well, there is open source, and there is collaborative development, and they are not the same thing. Adobe retains tight control over Flex for the sake of its commercial interests. It is a reminder that although the Flex SDK is open source it is not a community property in the same way as Apache.

Once crumb of comfort for Adobe is that this kind of intense debate shows the high value of Flex to its developers. It would be far, far worse if nobody cared.

Update: you can vote against the fx prefix or discuss it in Adobe’s bug-tracking system here.

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adobe, eclipse, microsoft, php, web authoring, windows

Microsoft Expression Web causes PHP error

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I ran into a strange and surprising PHP error today. I’m working on a little PHP application which has a login page. The login script calls session_start() to start or resume a PHP session. It was working OK so I decided to decorate the page a little (I was working in Eclipse). I like to try a variety of tools, so I ran up Microsoft’s Expression Web, added an image, then re-ran the script to see how it looked.

The answer was not good, because I now had an error:

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie – headers already sent

I puzzled over this for some time. The error was in line 0 of my login page. I couldn’t see anything that was different from before, except the static image that meant nothing to PHP.

Eventually I worked it out. Eclipse (running on Windows) created the PHP files using ANSI. On saving, Expression Web silently changed them to UTF-8. That in itself was no bad thing – it’s usually a better choice – though I reckon it should ask. The bigger problem was that Expression also added a BOM (byte order mark) to the beginning of the file. This is actually optional for UTF-8, and most non-Windows editors do not add it. It happens to flummox PHP, which interprets them who-knows-how and sends some output to the browser, preventing session_start from working.

This is particularly painful to debug since most editors do not display the BOM; they simply use it to confirm the character set in use. So you can have file A which works, and file B which does not, and they are character-by-character identical.

One way to see and remove the BOM is to open it with Edit.com, which does not understand it at all:

I guess both Expression and PHP could do better here. The bit that puzzles me is that I can’t be the first to run into this. Doesn’t Microsoft know that its UTF-8 BOM breaks PHP files, at least on the two versions I tried (XAMPP on Windows and PHP 5.2.1 on Linux)? I can’t even see a preference in Expression that would prevent it being written. And if you remove it, and then re-edit in Expression, it carefully writes it back. Unlike Adobe’s Dreamweaver, which leaves well alone.

PS if you want to know all about BOMs, see here.

Update: See comments – apparently this was fixed in Expression Web 2.0. Tina Clarke discusses the problem here.

adobe, drm, microsoft, sony

DRM-protected epub a good buy?

Someone considering a Sony Reader from Waterstones (a UK bookseller) asked me what I thought.

I haven’t tried the Sony Reader yet – it would be an interesting thing to review and I’ve heard good reports of its usability and readability. The snag for me would be that I’m already device-laden when out and about, and the last thing I want is yet another one. In principle, I’d rather use a multifunctional device – the iPhone is apparently good for reading, or maybe a laptop or netbook. Battery life is an issue on laptops, but I can usually plug in on the train now.

But I digress. What about the content, is an epub from Waterstones a good buy? I took at look at the site. Waterstones has done a deal with Sony and gives the impression that you must buy a Reader (£224) in order to purchase and read its ebooks, though as far as I can tell you can read them on a PC or Mac without buying a Reader. The help page is a model of unclarity. It presumes I already have a Reader. Then it says I have to install Adobe Digital Editions and sign up for an Adobe ID. It seems rather convoluted, that to buy a book from WaterStones and read it on a Sony I have to sign up with Adobe.

It is all about DRM of course. I took at a look at Adobe Digital Editions. This is the software for reading an epub protected with DRM delivered by Adobe Content Server 4, which I presume is what Waterstones is using. I installed it and saw dialogs just like the ones I remember from the failed Microsoft Reader and its lit format:

I can “activate” up to six devices on which to read my ebooks. A few other things caught my eye. System requirements show Windows and Mac but not Linux. The faq says Digital Editions does not connect behind ISA server – that would hit me, as I use ISA, the Microsoft firewall – and explains bad scenarios. For example, if you don’t authorize your computer, maybe because you don’t want to give your personal details to Adobe, the books are locked forever to that one computer. I presume you couldn’t even transfer them to a Sony Reader.

Surprisingly, the faq says that the only supported device is Sony Reader PRS-505, though it adds:

Adobe is actively working to support other platforms and devices. Further developments will be announced when available.

No iPhone (Stanza). No Amazon Kindle. Won’t work on my Windows Mobile devices, or any phone as far as I can tell.

The reader itself worked fine. I downloaded a free book from Feedbooks and added it to the library – no DRM, phew.

As for Watersones ebooks, right now, there are several things to dislike. First, if I’m going to buy an ebook, I do want to be able to read it across all my devices – a specialist reader has its place, but other mobile devices are also important. I wouldn’t consider it without that. Second, the DRM is a nuisance. Third, the prices strike me as too high. For example, I can buy John Le Carre’s A Most Wanted Man for £13.99, which Waterstones tells me is a discount of £5.70 from the list price of £18.99. However, the same book is on offer in hardback for £12.50. So I am paying a premium to get the ebook.

Software books definitely have advantages. They are weightless, green, searchable, you can vary the type size. However they have disadvantages too. You need a device to read them; you can’t sell them on; you have no physical backup; there is no smart cover; and you don’t get the sensual pleasure of turning over crisp new pages. Further, the publisher is saving manufacturing cost, and the retailer is saving storage and carriage costs: shouldn’t those savings be passed on?

These factors, combined with the DRM nuisance and the format wars, would make me cautious about investing in Waterstones ebooks at the moment.

There is a political aspect to all this. Amazon is expected to launch Kindle in the UK at some point. It needs wireless support for direct content download, which may be holding it up. However, UK publishers seem solidly behind epub and Sony/Adobe. The Bookseller observes:

There may be a collective strategy about this: no-one—least of all Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan or Random House—wants to see Amazon in possession of the dominant e-book device, and by consequence become the only e-book retailer.

Of course the publishers can support multiple formats. My guess is that Amazon will be a significant player with Kindle, even though it is late arriving.

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adobe, microsoft

Five things right, five things wrong from Microsoft in 2008

Just saw this Network World article on four things Microsoft got right in 2008. It says: Windows 7, Hiring Yahoo talent, Windows Azure and Server 2008.

I partly agree (I am not sure about Azure, or the significance of Yahoo hires). Here’s my own five right moves, with my usual developer bias.

1. Not buying Yahoo at what now seems a ludicrously inflated price.

2. Windows 7 preview. It was kept reasonably well under wraps, smoothly delivered, and looks promising though not revolutionary from a technical perspective.

3. Windows Server 2008. Same kernel as Vista SP1, and broadly a delight to work with. Hyper-V virtualization is great too.

4. Silverlight. It is probably too late for Microsoft to out-flank Adobe’s Flash, particularly as the cross-platform story is confused. Nevertheless, the Silverlight browser plug-in is well done and evolving rapidly. It gives a significant boost to the .NET platform.

5. SQL Server 2008. The last of the big Server 2008 products to ship; and I respect the SQL team for taking its time and delivering a high quality release.

In other ways, Microsoft has stuttered. Here are five Microflops:

1. Online presence. Live Search continues to stutter. As a whole, Microsoft’s web sites are confusing to navigate, inconsistent and slow. There are many broken links. Like many others, I use Google to search Microsoft. See Danny Sullivan’s brilliant post for more analysis.

2. Live Mesh as an application platform. Sorry, the more I think about this, the more I think Microsoft’s strategy is all wrong. See my Reg article for more. I am sorry as I had high hopes for this.

3. Database APIs. Microsoft’s old bugbear. Infinite flavours of LINQ, ADO.NET Data Services, Entity Framework, SQL Data Services, Windows Azure storage service, Mesh data feeds, what have I missed? There is no shortage of good technology and ideas; but there is lack of strategic discipline.

4. Community forums. There are the old MSDN forums; the new MSDN forums; strange escapees like the Silverlight forums; the old TechNet forums; the new TechNet forums; no doubt others too. Is it so difficult to have a single jump-off point for Microsoft forums, or to do smooth migrations that preserve old messages, or to prioritize fast response times above pretty formatting?

5. Windows Mobile. There are a number of things I like about Microsoft’s mobile platform, including the ease of programming with the .NET Framework. Still, Apple’s iPhone and the rise of Netbooks like the Asus Eee PC show separately the extent to which Microsoft’s mobile team has got it wrong. Remember Origami?

adobe, internet, multimedia, software

BBC iPlayer AIR app brings downloads to Mac and Linux

I’ve successfully installed the new BBC iPlayer AIR application on Windows, Mac and Linux – and I’m mostly impressed so far. The main snag is that you have to click the Labs tester button on a separate page before the  download works – but this isn’t mentioned on the download page. Another usability issue is that when you start up the app it invites you start downloading; you click the link, and the iPlayer web site opens in your default browser with no advice on what to do next. You have to find a programme which includes a download to computer link – most of them do not. I found a Roy Orbison documentary that worked (no, that’s not Roy Orbison in the pic, but another singer).

This was a better experience than early days with the old download iPlayer, though on Linux (Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex) I found that I needed to fiddle with the settings and allocate some disk space specifically before it would accept downloads.

An interesting aspect of the new iPlayer is that it replaces a peer-to-peer download system with a direct download. I discussed the implications of this at some length with both Anthony Rose at the BBC, and with a couple of ISPs, when I was researching an interview for the Guardian. In the end there wasn’t enough space to include much of this technical detail, though I’m hoping to post some of it in the near future.

A quick summary: the ISPs are not in favour of peer-to-peer because it is less efficient. Typically, all the retries cause approximately double the amount of data to be transferred (according to my source). That said, they don’t like the BBCs move towards Level 3 rather than Akamai, because it works out more expensive for them. ISPs could install their own box to stream the BBCs content, saving them operational money, but these apparently are expensive to buy and install; I was told that the iPlayer’s traffic does not yet justify it, but if it grows to say twice what it is now, it will become economic.

The biggest cost though is the last step, from the ISP to the user. This is where the cable companies (mostly Virgin Media) have a big advantage, since the cable goes to your doorstep, and is designed to accommodate digital broardcasts. ISPs that have taken advantage of local loop unbundling are also relatively well placed. Those that pay BT wholesale for the traffic are the most vulnerable.

The other important point is that there is always something you can do to manage increased traffic – though not necessarily quickly. If everyone in the UK suddenly tries to watch HD video at the same time, the system will seize up, but that won’t happen. What will happen is that increasing numbers of people will find that their cheap transfer-limited packages are no longer sufficient and they will need to upgrade.

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