09.25.11
Gemini version available ♊︎Windows Phone 7 Will Die With Silverlight
Summary: How Silverlight died and why it is highly probable that Microsoft will always fail in the mobile arena
OVER a year ago we explained the connection between Vista Phony 7 (WP7) and Silverlight. That was just before Silverlight died. What’s amazing is that a lot of people forget that the fall of Silverlight is a prelude to the fall of WP7. One loosely depends on the other.
Windows Mobile was a massive failure that cost Microsoft a lot of money before Sidekick and KIN injured Microsoft as well (Microsoft tried to hide those losses). Just like in search, Microsoft keeps swapping brands, always with the same outcome and the same amazing losses.
According to this, Microsoft may have started a disinformation campaign for WP7. To quote Christine: “I can’t swear this item is Microsoft FUD, but it sure smells that way. On Wednesday a writer on CNET’s Microsoft beat reported on a study released by NPD Group. Although the article is never quite clear on exactly what is being studied (unless I missed something – tell me), the point seems to be that lots of potential buyers just can’t wait to get their hands on Windows Phone 7. Again, I could be wrong, but this sounds like the beginning of some sort of Redmond financed campaign to me.”
Since it is based on XAML to an extent, its fate is closely related to that of Silverlight, whose own people say was “destined to fail”. Quoting the new blog post:
Why Silverlight was destined to fail and my time as one of its custodians.
[...]
Death of Silverlight is sad, but at the same time good. Yes I said it, as for years I’ve sat behind this product watching it grow in an amazing ways across the globe. It went from this science project existence that I remember saying it wouldn’t last through tot his highly competitive technology that had both Microsoft and Adobe at each other’s throats over.
The war between Adobe ended though and over time the technology become somewhat a questionable approach to solving a whole bunch of issues within the .NET community.
So how did we arrive at this point? Here’s my mini memoirs of my time at Microsoft and in the Silverlight Product Management / Evangelism space.
It’s a long read, but take some time to stick process it all. I’ve left out a whole heap of juicy crap, simply because it would turn into a novel!!! And you wouldn’t believe me if I wrote it anyway.
The failure of Silverlight will cascade down to other Microsoft products. Vista was supposed to make a lot out of XAML and it failed. █
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NotZed said,
September 26, 2011 at 1:42 am
Well, that was a long read. Could use some proof-reading too.
Although everything he says leads to the conclusion: the technology just isn’t that great either. It really isn’t.
But I felt most sorry for his wife having to put up with a move to the USA. The food there really does suck, and then there’s the weather and the ugly, loud, and fat loud people, and all the rest.
twitter Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 2:06 am
Oh wow. Thanks for goading me into reading the TE’s amazing description of death of Silverlight, chaos at Microsoft and a well reasoned prediction of Windows 8 failure. Without your goading, I was content to take Roy’s summary. The story is incredibly damaging, very much worth reading and making a brief summary. I knew people at Microsoft were belligerent idiots but this is amazing commentary on how they select and promote the most rabid fans to mismanage and deceptively push third rate software.
The Birth of Silverlight:
Can it get any more toxic? Here we have typical Microsoft behavior and why they do it:
The flip side of this constant harassment of his former Adobe peers is a revolting hero worship and adulation of his new Microsoft drinking buddies.
There’s lots more where that came from. So how does an intoxicated, hyper competitive sycophant get the job? With more of the same.
What kind of sacrifices was he willing to make to be with his heroes?
He then tells us how he and his TE buddies planned, or did’nt plan the development of Silverlight.
Having created something, they used the Olympics to push it on US households.
and it sucked and the world hated it and he had no clue.
and nothing was done to fix the problems because they were completely disorganized and depending on their usual strategy of ramming things down people’s throats
he was moved to a different competing team working on the same project and describes them
then, a tragedy
After more fights and nonsense, he resigned.
and he became another form of Microsoft parasite, fixing things that should not be broken in the first place:
He leaks the news that Silverlight is to be replaced with html5 and predicts Windows 8 will flunk the way Silverlight did and for the same reasons.
For the record, NotZed, people in Tacoma/Seattle are not at all like the raging idiots Microsoft imports from around the world. They are not fat and loud, they have some very nice food and are in excellent health. If I had not been curious about the wife’s experiences, I’d have never read that piece. Thanks.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 2:55 am
Thanks for these fair use summaries. I must only comment to add that one SilverLie TE was personally harassing me at the time. Jonathan Wong. Microsoft needs to rethink its bullying tactics. It’s no way to sell products. This is another reason why people dislike Microsoft.
twitter Reply:
September 27th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
My pleasure, thanks for finding the document. It is a very interesting and personal look at how Microsoft operates. We’ve seen the general, high level planning about control of video formats in Comes documents. We have also seen the TE training manual and their persistent, viscous heckling is impossible to miss. This man’s half remorseful rant stands both as a confession and documentation that Microsoft’s development process is all driven by marketing toward “decision makers” who are expected to run over actual practitioners.