RIA Release News: Adobe Flash Player 10 & Microsoft Silverlight 2

Two of the giants in RIA, Microsoft and Adobe, had major releases over the past 2 weeks: Adobe Flash Player 10 and Microsoft Silverlight 2. Microsoft is promoting some recent worldwide usage results stating that one in four consumers have installed Silverlight. Compare this to over 95% adoption of Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft still has a way to go.

Adobe Flash Player 10 is a significant release. Flash 9 set the groundwork for supporting RIA based applications Flex and AIR with a focus toward developing application functionality. Flash 10 takes us back to the core of Adobe’s community – designers and the tools for building creative experiences. Flash 10 offers substantial improvements and features including:

* Advanced Text Engine – for supreme control and extension of typography and text fonts.
* 3D Effects – built in tools taking 2D designs to 3D using simple API’s including ActionScript based motion.
* Advanced Drawing API – Fast rendering and on-the-fly dynamic runtime based drawing.
* Dynamic Media Streaming – HD / high Resolution video and audio streams with automatic detection of bandwidth for performance optimization.
* Image and Audio enhancers – Use Pixel Bender for engaging effects and advanced sound API’s for audio mix behind the visual experience.

Unfortunately, there still is no support for mobile, specifically iPhone. Over the next 6 months look for Flex 4 and “Thermo” releases to build on Flash 10 for even more powerful Adobe based RIA’s.

Link References: Adobe Flash 10, Adobe Flex, Adobe CS4

Silverlight 2 contains significant new features and runtime enhancements over Silverlight 1 and Silverlight 2 BETA. Microsoft is promoting some recent worldwide usage results stating that one in four consumers have installed Silverlight. Considering Microsoft’s adoption has taken place in just a over a year this is impressive none the less. Part of the gain was certainly brought on by the popularity of the Olympics and the video section of NBCOlympics.com where over a 17 day period had more than 50 million unique visitors, 1.3 billion page views and 70 million video streams representing 600 million minutes of video broadcast. Impressive numbers!

Here are some high level features creating the buzz around this release:

* .NET Extended Language – Silverlight 2 supports a variety of programming languages, including Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby, making it easier for developers already familiar with one of these languages to repurpose their existing skill sets.
* Silverlight Control Pack – with dozens of additional controls for developers and designers to quickly build applications including the Grid, Slider, CheckBox, TreeView, DockPanel, WrapPanel, ViewBox, Expander, NumericUpDown, AutoComplete and more.
* Deep Zoom – This has been around but has been advanced. Impressive high resolution image functionality and easy adaption to applications
* Rich Media – High definition video, streaming optimization technologies including live and on-demand with search engine meta tagging
* Broad Data Binding – Built in support for most protocols including REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS and HTTP services, enabling users to create integrated applications with various database systems
* Cross-Platform & Cross Browser – support for Windows, MAC, Linux in FireFox, IE, and Google Chrome.

Link References: SilverLight 2 Download, SilverLight 2