Microsoft MIXes It Up

As I predicted last week, Microsoft didn't unveil a grand, new Web services platform today at MIX07.

That's not to say Microsoft's goody bag was empty. The company released two different test versions of Silverlight—the technology formerly known as Windows Presentation/Everywhere— and Expression Studio. Microsoft also is making it easier for developers to mashup with its technologies by way of the Silverlight Streaming service and new Windows Live licensing terms. Oh, and let's not forget Microsoft's DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime).

My colleague Darryl Taft has done outstanding reporting on Silverlight. The first five links in "Related" below are excellent primer on Silverlight and DLR.

Today's announcements are signs of a vastly different kind of MIX and Microsoft's increasing stature with Web development—a kind of mashup of designer and development tools, runtime languages, Web services and operating systems, with a dash of open source-like licensing.

At MIX06, Microsoft came across as more an also-ran—a monolithic company trying to catch up with lithe Web 2.0 trendsetters. Today's MIX07 announcements evoke a different tonal quality and excitement. The "Wow" Microsoft wanted to give with Windows Vista may come with the tools introduced, extended or launched today.

The broad announcements and what they mean:

Silverlight
No surprise, Silverlight is the big MIX news, as Microsoft looks to break Adobe's hold on Web animation development and seeks to embrace and extend the Web platform (aka Web 2.0).

During his keynote speech this afternoon, Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's incoming chief software architect, aptly explained that the next PC revolution, like the last, is about content creation. Instead of word processing documents or spreadsheets, digital content will push forward the PC, he said.

He's absolutely right. But the consumption mechanism is much broader than the PC. Connected digital content has got to scale to disparate devices—everything from cell phones to TVs to automobiles to refrigerators. While the first-day MIX07 keynote only covered some of the scaling scenarios, Microsoft designed Silverlight with disparate devices in mind.

Today, Microsoft released a Silverlight 1.0 beta and 1.1 alpha, the latter of which is based on .Net Framework. Ozzie made the announcement like some big secret revealed. No surprise, there. Of course, .Net Framework and Silverlight were going to be joined at the hip. At Microsoft, .Net Framework is analogous to oxygen. That said, 1.1 alpha is surefire testimony to Silverlight's importance. WPF/E's renewal is more than a name change. The technology anchors Microsoft's broader Web content strategy.

Ozzie talked about AJAX like it was a has-been. True, AJAX is a last-century technology that only sprung to popularity in the new millennium. But, sorry Ozzie, AJAX's heart pumps still. Nevertheless, the Microsoft executive and Scott Guthrie, general manager of Microsoft's Developer Division, made compelling advocations for a dynamic, interactive Web—with deep, desktop roots, of course—that transcends tools like AJAX and Flash.

Microsoft means business when its keynote demonstrators repeatedly use Macs to demo the output of development tools, as Guthrie and others did today. So, I did the same, over at Microsoft's Silverlight site. There Microsoft offers up some compelling demos. I downloaded the Silverlight beta on a Mac and started the demos in Apple's Safari.

The Fox Movies Trailer Library demo is a jarring experience for its speed, ease, and breathtaking audio and video. It's a wonderful showcase for Silverlight. On my DSL connection, the trailers started playing with just the hint of delay. There was no caching or stop-and-start recaching of video, which smoothly played and boomed the speakers attached to the MacBook.

Earlier this month, Forest Key, director of product management for Microsoft's design tools, made clear the Silverlight adoption approach.

"Our strategy is to focus on content," he told me. "If the content is right, people will download the plug-in."

The Silverlight plug-in download and installation process was easy on the Mac and a tad easier on Windows Vista, which brought up no User Account Control warning during the process. If the content is compelling, adding Silverlight should be easy for consumers.

Microsoft largely left search out of today's Silverlight announcements, and yet the technology is part of the Web strategy's underpinnings. Where Flash content largely isn't indexed by search engines, Microsoft has made this capability one of the Silverlight's many differentiators.

Based on the opening keynote, Microsoft is starting to deliver on concepts it has talked about for years, really since its 2003 developer conference. Yes, Adobe should start looking over its shoulder. Silverlight may be a handsome technology, but beneath the suave is a Flash killer at heart.

Apple should take notice, too. It's not for love of the Mac that Microsoft is supporting a rival operating system. Macs are favorites of designers and for media production. The consumption tools, with ties to the creation tools, are a good starting place for a competitive move by Microsoft.

Live Lives
In yet more confirmation that Live isn't dead, Microsoft added Silverlight to the Live family of services and opened up Live APIs and licensing terms.

Silverlight Live—officially called Silverlight Streaming—is a content hosting service. Microsoft provides 4GB of storage to anyone serving up content via Silverlight. It's Microsoft's way of taking some of the pain and cost out of developing and distributing Silverlight content.

Silverlight Streaming and the Live licensing terms both strongly foreshadow the services platform Ozzie briefly discussed in February. Microsoft clearly is building out services infrastructure to support Web services and mashups. The latter is important for generating clicks and associated advertising revenue. Looks like Microsoft wants to be the services cloud.

But Microsoft's Live licensing is perplexing—and not. It's perplexing for being very Web 2.0 unlike. It's not perplexing because the terms are typical Microsoft. The company treats its intellectual property as a differentiator, which is reflected in the tightness of some licensing terms.

A comparison of Microsoft's terms to Google AJAX Search API or Google Maps API is revealing. Google doesn't charge for these Web APIs, while Microsoft seeks compensation based on usage. In the case of search, beyond 750,000 search queries a month. Microsoft's approach is similar to AOL and its AIM service. Developers must pay if they generate lots of traffic. AOL and Microsoft licensing terms are more reflective of the desktop software model than Web 2.0.

Microsoft is moving forward by even licensing the APIs, but simply not fast enough. The Google approach to APIs lets Web 2.0 companies build on mutual success. Service A licenses APIs that Services B, C and D can use. The result is a number of interesting mashups and more extensible services without lots of extra development investment.

For example, last week, I bought a Nokia N95 cell phone that leverages Six Apart APIs for blogging to TypePad and for posting videos to Vox. In addition, Vox can import photos from services like Flickr or video from YouTube. Six Apart didn't need to create an MSN Soapbox or PhotoBucket.

The more constrained approach is typical Microsoft, of licensing on its terms. The approach has worked well on the desktop, but on the Web smaller companies leap off one another's development. It's a fundamental difference of approach. In the market for desktop software, Microsoft—meaning Windows and its tools—is the platform. For competitors like Google, the Web is the platform.

DLR and CLR
Microsoft's announcements around Dynamic and Common language runtimes rival Silverlight for importance. An apt description would be that through Windows Presentation/Everywhere (aka Silverlight), Microsoft will take .Net Framework everywhere. Recall that I tested Silverlight on a Mac using Safari, which is good example.

Such a tact is greatly forward thinking, as Microsoft looks to the plethora of devices that will be capable of consuming Web content but not necessarily while running Windows. Microsoft made fortunes off of operating systems, but the company has been from the start about software development. It's core to the corporate culture and the right place for Microsoft to embrace and extend (I won't say extinguish, as some commenters may do) the Web platform.

That said, it's not a "play nice" strategy. Microsoft is setting the terms by which it supports other tools, languages or platforms. Rather than join other standards or open-source efforts, Microsoft sets the rules for cooperation. Analogy: In my neighborhood are three houses once owned by the same man. He was friendly with his neighbors on his terms. His family lived in the middle house and he rented out the other two.

Related to DLR and CLR: Microsoft has greatly extended the number of programming languages it supports, in what looks like a "no developer left behind" strategy. It's a dramatic departure from the Windows (or DOS going way back)-only development approach that predominated most of Microsoft's 30-plus year history. Microsoft has been on this "embrace all developers" path since the launch of Visual Studio .Net. Newer tools not only open up more platforms, but more developer languages.

In closing, the MIX team deserves praise for generating some real excitement and putting some real mash in mashups. The presentation of content should feel familiar to Web 2.0 developers.

But I don't know about all this Twitter business.

Related:

• Dynamic Languages Shine in Silverlight, eWEEK, April 30, 2007
• Microsoft's Dynamic Language Leaders Speak, eWEEK, April 30, 2007
• Microsoft Hopes to Turn a Silverlight on Flash, eWEEK, April 30, 2007
• Adobe Open-Source Move Sets Showdown with Microsoft, eWEEK, April 26, 2007
• The Google Quandary, Microsoft Watch, April 24, 2007
• Digital Media Bundling 2.0, Microsoft Watch, April 16, 2007
• DoubleClick and Microsoft's Thrift Culture, Microsoft Watch, April 16, 2007
• Microsoft: Silverlight More Than a Flash, eWEEK, April 15, 2007
• Who Shot Windows Live?, Microsoft Watch, March 8, 2007
• Wanted: Dead or Live, Microsoft Watch, March 2, 2007
• What Is Microsoft's Services Platform?, Microsoft Watch, March 1, 2007
• March 'Orcas' CTP Shows Some Expression, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 28, 2007
• Ray Ozzie Speaks Out, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 27, 2007
• Google and Long Tail Computing, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 22, 2007
• Ouch! You've Been Live Branded, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 2, 2007
• Microsoft's Expression Means What?, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 16, 2007
• Sorry, but Live Isn't Dead, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 12, 2006
• It's a Shame About Ray, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 8, 2006
• Gauging Microsoft's Expression, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 6, 2006