Are Flash and Silverlight the same thing?

We’ve been having a discussion in Monochrome towers over the last few days about the whole Silverlight vs Flash vs Flex etc etc etc argument, and some interesting things have turned up that I thought we should repeat here.

Both Microsoft and Adobe now have some very similar looking technologies with Silverlight and Flash, namely the ability to script code, and render applications all within a box in the browser, whilst doing various background tasks such as hitting out to web services and remote APIs. Similar sounding although they may initially seem, they do differ at a slightly lower point in the stack. Behind the box in the browser, lies two frameworks – the .NET framework for Silverlight, and the Flash Player API for Flash/Flex.

OK, so these aren’t dramatically different either – so where does the differences lie? The entire internet seems to think that Microsoft is out to get Flash with Silverlight and take over the world of the rich internet application – but we at Monochrome now think a bit differently.

For starters, lets look at the bloodlines of both formats. First up, Flash has always been flash (or Future Splash as it used to be), it’s been a tool for drawing vector graphics into a stage. Certain other things have also been added over time: video, web services, AMF, XML support etc etc. Finally, the flex framework has come trotted along to enable developers to build their applications using Flash in a more rapid way.

Silverlight on the other hand used to go by a different name, WPF/E. So, WTF is WPF/E?  WPF/E is essentially Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere, or another way of saying WPF (the technology now used to build applications on Windows Vista), but not necessarily on the desktop. Therefore, in a nutshell, this  means that it has come from a very different background to that of Flash. Silverlight’s heritage, in a round-a-bout way comes from the ancestry of WinForms, i.e application development. It is not coming from the stable of design.

So, what does this mean? At the end of the day, not much, but it does mean something when you look more into the future. For a start, Microsoft have no intention of taking on Flash – after all, it not easy taking on the most installed piece of software on the planet. It’s a well known fact that Microsoft intend to see everything they provide ultimately in the cloud, coming down to your screen via WPF or Silverlight into the browser, which is exactly what they are setting themselves up to do. Therefore hey are developing Silverlight to be the best web based application development platform it can be, not necessarily a “flash killer”.

Therefore I think it’s fair to say that going forward, Flash and Silverlight will co-exist as two very different beasts.  Silverlight will specialise in delivery applications to the web, backing up the vast library of applications available out there already from .NET developers.  Flash on the other hand will continue as normal, specialising in browser based animation and video as it does now, with a smattering of applications via the Flex framework.

It will certainly be interesting to see where things take us over the next couple of years.

Posted by Neil Middleton on 11 Aug 2008