The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated – Mark Twain

 

The internet is currently full of rumors and reports that Microsoft no longer will develop Silverlight after version 5 is deployed. This could not be a bigger exaggeration.

Silverlight consists of a couple of different components;

• XAML for describing UI
• C# for writing the code
• A framework with built classes and controls to speed up development
• A runtime to execute the executable
• Development tools

One of these will go away “A runtime to execute the executable” and one will be updated “A framework with … “.

A new runtime

The Silverlight runtime will go away. Microsoft doesn’t support plugins in their Windows 8 Metro-style browser and here the rumors have some validity. But what is in the runtime? There is a memory model, an execution environment, a type system, threading model and a lot of things needed to get your application to run. In Silverlight you seldom interact directly with this runtime, you interact with the libraries on top of it.

But there is a big difference between being killed and being replaced. In Windows 8 they Silverlight model has been embraced and pull down on top of the kernel itself. In Windows 8 the runtime is called the “WinRT”. It will execute your C# code and XAML but native to the platform instead of in a virtual machine.

Does this change stuff? Yes, will you have to care? Barely. If you don’t count the fact that your apps will be able to run on XBox, Devices and PC’s.

The framework

Here you as a developer will be mostly affected. A few things will change. A couple of namespaces are moved to better reflect the native model of WinRT,  the type system has change a little bit and your reflection code will have to be updated (minor update, adding a method call to all typeof and gettype). For the most part, all the classes, methods and other artifacts will be the same as the ones that you use for Silverlight / WP7 development today.

The big difference here isn’t any changes to existing code, it’s that Silverlight applications now get access to so much more functionality that it was restricted from before. Silverlight becomes native.

C# and XAML

… will stay the same (with the obvious version upgrades). You will not have to create COM-objects or call any Win32 api’s. From C#; the programming model of WinRT is pretty much the same as that of the CLR / DLR.

Final words

So yes, Silverlight in its current form could probably be considered dead. But is the technology dead? I’d argue it isn’t. It is evolving into a native model, it’s going to be the engine for applications on the next version of Windows, both on desktop and other devices.

So even if the runtime dies, it’s essence and tools are still there.

 

More reading:

Silverlight isnt dead its the heart of WP8, Windows 8 and XBOX

Silverlight is dead, long live XAML

What is WinRT and is Silverlight dead?

I firmly believe that most cell phone operators have lost the initiative in their own market. There are more and more technology breakthroughs and events that further marginalizes their role in providing communication services.

With Microsoft buying Skype, putting their PBX replacement Lync in the cloud and pushing hard for device independence for all your information; they start to become a big competitor on the communication services market.

Consider the following scenario:

Your company decides to rent Lync from Microsoft in the cloud, by then Microsoft has connected Skype’s dialing out capabilities with Lync in Office 365 and rolled out the Lync/Skype clients for their windows phone 7 and IPhone.

Now ask yourself this:

"Will you ever have to use the voice service of the cell phone operator again?”

The answer is simply no.

Another interesting example is the phone app. A simple SMS replacement with additional value add like sending your exact location using GPS-coordinates. This without the additional cost for sending sms.

The cellphone operator are getting marginalized to merely providing the infrastructure for 1’s and 0’s.  

How did this happen? They are protecting their own investments more then they think about innovation.

So in the end they only have themselves to blame, after all, they could have invented Skype, they could have created PBX’s in the cloud, they could’ve anticipated that IP packages will be the communication going forward.

Instead they choose conservatism over innovation, bad choice. Services is the high-margin business, infrastructure the low-margin.