Microsoft’s RIA On-ramp:
Insight into New Client Technologies with Jamie Rodriguez
– Jamie Rodriguez, Technical Evangelist, Microsoft

 

 

 

 

 

When it comes to all things .NET, Jaime Rodriguez is the person you want on the scene. In his role as Technical Evangelist, Jaime works with Microsoft partners to help them understand and adopt emerging technologies — with a particular focus on evangelizing Microsoft’s client technologies. In his ongoing conversations with customers, Jaime captures user feedback that helps product teams improve releases.

 

The UIRC spoke with Jaime about Microsoft’s new consumer-facing desktop and Web technologies. We asked him how and why Microsoft is positioning its entry into the RIA design-development space, and why organizations should adopt Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation.

 

 

Q. From a business perspective, what should organizations know about Silverlight and why should they embrace it?

 

A. At the highest level, organizations need to know that Silverlight represents Microsoft’s entry into the rich Internet application (RIA) space.

Silverlight is a cross-platform, cross-browser, cross-device, free browser plug-in. Silverlight is based on the proven and ubiquitous .NET runtime, and leverages Microsoft’s strengths around video and imaging. In addition to running on Macintosh and Windows, our partner Novell is working on a Linux version of Silverlight; we’re working on Windows Mobile, and Nokia announced a partnership for Silverlight to run on a few of their phones, which run on Symbian OS.

 

Given all this, Silverlight is positioned as a very comprehensive framework for building and deploying RIAs with a “better user experience,” something all organizations strive to deliver. Different organizations and verticals have different goals for RIAs, but you can count on some or all of the following common aspirations: immersive experiences that build emotional connections, branded experiences that inspire and provide pride of ownership, and insightful visualizations that improve time to decision-making. All organizations are looking to increase user productivity and decrease training costs through improved usability and better system performance. When you toss in Microsoft’s video capabilities and strong offerings around development tools, the total cost of ownership of Silverlight makes a whole lot of sense for enterprise.

 

 

Q. Can you explain why Microsoft is investing so heavily into the RIA space? 

 

A. Well, we fell a little behind on the RIA space because we were embracing development standards with AJAX. However, we reached the point where we know that to enable richer, more compelling browser experiences, we needed an RIA technology, a plug-in that could provide all those capabilities to fill the gap where the browser and HTML are falling short. Silverlight is our cross-platform entry point. While Microsoft has traditionally been extremely strong with desktop offerings and tooling for developing desktop applications, now we want to address the increasing demand for cross-platform needs. We’ll continue to innovate and provide the best platform for the desktop, but we also need to make sure we have the best platform for building cross-platform solutions. We will continue to embrace “standards-based” AJAX solutions, too, of course.

 

 

Q. What experience does Silverlight deliver that the Flash Player does not? 

 

A. Comparing players is tricky because it really depends on the scenario. Silverlight is very strong where you need best-of-breed video quality and performance; we were the first to do HD video in a plug-in, and we continue to innovate on video. We recently introduced Deep Zoom’s ability to navigate large images. It really depends on scenarios.

 

I think when comparing the two technologies you should look at their ecosystems, and that is where we are strong. Silverlight includes the programmability of the .NET framework, which is a very comprehensive, proven framework for building lines of business applications. Silverlight comes with great features like LINQ, (Language Integrated Query) and a choice of programming languages like C#, VB .NET, Ruby, Python or Managed Javascript. Silverlight has best-of-breed tools for both developers and designers and a proven, innovative workflow in our desktop platform Windows Presentation Foundation. This workflow allows developers and designers to build solutions with tools optimized for each role and share the same Markup language (XAML).

 

 

Q. You mentioned Deep Zoom technology. Can you talk about that and tell our readers why it’s so cool?

 

A. Deep Zoom is an efficient way to navigate very large images. If you are accessing extremely high-resolution imaging, like a 1GB image, server-side Deep Zoom pre-processes images so that they actually download piece-by-piece, and it optimizes images at whatever level of detail you’re looking for to deliver the best experience.

 

When I first go to a Web site with a very large image, Deep Zoom will optimize for whatever level of detail I choose to see on that image. Then, as I start zooming into that image, Deep Zoom will just grab the pieces needed to actually provide me the level of detail needed. That greatly optimizes my bandwidth and optimizes the time that it takes for that image to be downloaded. Deep Zoom does all of these transitions in seamless manner, transparent to the user.

 

 

Q. Is there any comparable technology out there that does what Deep Zoom does?

 

A. I’ve heard people compare Deep Zoom to Zoomify, but that’s a server-side technology; it requires licensing and specific server technology. I’ve also heard people compare it to Google Maps, but obviously that’s proprietary technology. Zoomarama from Flash comes close, but none of them actually do what Deep Zoom does in terms of performance and seamless transitions. The ones I mentioned each have an area of weaknesses in either a licensing requirement or they’re advertisement-based so you can’t really incorporate them to your Web site.

 

Deep Zoom can serve any image. We give you a composer where you prepare your image. We don’t have a server-side requirement and we do enable an optimized experience on the client. As well, Deep Zoom is part of the Silverlight plug-in which gives you other great benefits.

 

 

Q. That segues right into … can you talk about the business benefits of Silverlight? 

 

A. Well, it depends on how you look at it. Silverlight can do many, many things. If you are a content company in the business of video on the Web, or something similar, we provide you a great cost-of-ownership around video. We provide features including throttling and Web playlists — things that let you optimize and monetize the video experience.

 

If you’re on the other side with a traditional or enterprise RIA, Silverlight gives you a very comprehensive platform in the .NET framework, a platform that has been proven for many, many years. We give you best-of-breed tools like Visual Studio and Expression Suite that is optimized for designers. So we’re giving you tools that are targeted specifically for designers and developers, both of which are needed to create compelling and immersive RIA experiences.

 

We give you a choice of languages and don’t force you to use Action script, or JavaScript, or anything. You can use .NET, C#, JavaScript, Python or ‘xxxx.’ The platform itself comes with a lot of great development features like LINQ and connectivity. So from the development standpoint, the cost is much lower, the time-to-market is faster.

 

Of course, I’ll go back to Silverlight being our entry point into RIA. So if you’re looking for business benefits, consider the economic advantages of RIAs, about which I could go on for hours … compelling experience, immersive experience or maybe a branded experience for pride of ownership, or richer, more insightful visualization capabilities that enable faster decision-making. All of that adds up to faster time-to-market and saves resources in terms of workers analyzing data faster. Obviously, ease-of-use plays very strongly in the RIA space. If you create a solution that’s easier to use — more intuitive — you’re decreasing training costs and increasing productivity.

 

 

Q. Do you think there’s a particular type of enterprise or vertical market that would be a good candidate to be an early adopter of Silverlight, and why?

 

A. The demand we’re seeing now from all of our customers — regardless of vertical or industry — is for the richness of being able to use .NET to develop RIAs. If I had to pick verticals or industries that might benefit more than others, I would say financials, healthcare and manufacturing, because those areas need rich visualization and more interactivity than some others. That said, with branding, with styling, retail and hospitality are also a very ripe RIA areas. I think we have enough features to address all the needs of all industries and verticals in a broad sense.

 

Being able to develop cross-platform applications using .NET is something Microsoft’s customers have been yearning for. We are hoping all verticals jump in and start creating richer experiences with the technology and tools they already love. Demand has been great all around.

 

Readers with Silverlight 2.0 can experience a demo of a financial services application that really highlights the enterprise value of Silverlight. It was built with .NET, which made it easier to code for rich connectivity to Web services.

 

 

Q. Are there any particular types of projects that are better suited for Silverlight than other technologies?

 

A. I think there are many scenarios and projects that should look into Silverlight: immersive video experiences if you want the best video quality and lowest cost of ownership, .NET Web-based solutions needing richer visualization like interactive charts, and solutions needing more complex controls than what can be accomplished in HTML or AJAX.

 

The next tier of solutions gets a bit harder to delineate. They would be suited for people who are doing AJAX but could benefit from better performance on client-side computing, or want to make cross-domain Web services calls, use sockets, use off-line storage and the like.

 

 

Q. Can you tell our readers about team collaboration in Silverlight and how the technology monetizes certain media assets?

 

A. On collaboration, I’ll go back to the shared markup language XAML that enables developers and designers to work with optimized tools, and share Silverlight’s user interface — share the entire building experience. There is no black box or binary format in the middle; developers and designers are working on the same UI. This ensures that the designer vision is carried to completion and it ensures the developer is focused on their tasks (like business logic, data, etc.) but still integrating it with the designers’ user interface. That’s a very innovative collaboration model that nobody else is doing yet and it’s already been proven with our desktop technology, Windows Presentation Foundation.

 

On monetizing assets, we have new features — for example, Web Playlist, which is like a server-side play list. If you’re serving media and you want to put up ads, this play list actually makes sure that all your ads are placed. The server state detects if a user is trying to skip an ad and declines the request for media until the ads are shown. We also have content protection or digital rights management (DRM), so you are ensured that nobody can steal your content and redistribute it. They always have to go back to your Web site to get it.

 

As well, Bit Throttling provides definite cost benefits for serving media. If you use the IIS Pack, you get bit throttling, which automatically optimizes bandwidth when streaming media. For example if you go to a Web site today and click on three-minute video, the browser will automatically download as much of the video as it can. What tends to happen is, you only watch the first 20 seconds and then anything else that the browser downloaded is wasted bandwidth and obviously wasted money. With bit throttling, you actually leverage the bandwidth because it will only serve media at a certain rate. The experience will still be good, but the entire three minutes won’t get served early. This obviously results in scalability on the server side because it decreases the amount of wasted bandwidth. There are other bandwidth-saving features in Silverlight, including Adaptive Streaming, which inspects the capabilities of the target machine and network characteristics and switches bit rates on the fly to optimize the viewing experience.

 

 

Q. What is Microsoft’s consumer adoption strategy for Silverlight and how is the company positioning the value proposition?

 

A. We’re not discriminating against any scenario. First of all, we’re getting a lot of great adoption from consumers just through our Microsoft.com, MSN and Live properties. We’re still one of the larger Web sites in the world. I would say our strategy for 1.0 with regards to partners has been very strong around content. If you look at our partners like NBC, CBS, Fox or MLB who have adopted Silverlight because of the superior media experience, they all serve a lot of video and they want higher quality video at a lower cost of ownership.

 

As we’re starting to move to Silverlight 2.0, we’re attracting portals and people who are just building RIAs, like AOL. As time goes on and the Silverlight player gets distributed a little bit more, it makes it easier for our partners to adopt Silverlight. We’re seeing a lot more partners over the last few months than we saw back in September when we started. So on that side we’re doing okay.

 

The current strategy that we have around Windows Mobile revolves around OEMs, the people that are actually shipping phones. We’re working with hardware providers to make sure that when phones ship, Silverlight is in the phone. We’re doing it with Windows Mobile; we’re doing it with Nokia, the largest phone vendor in the world.

 

One thing I am excited about is that as time goes on and Silverlight continues to grow, deals become easier. Our partners can more readily justify moving to our technology because a smaller percentage of their users will be prompted to install. We have nowhere to go but up and since Silverlight is small, free and co-exists with any other plug-in, we are optimistic about adoption.

 

 

Q. Are there any public numbers you can share with our readers as to how many consumers have downloaded Silverlight?

 

A. I think the public figure we shared around MIX2008 in March was at that time 1.5 million downloads per day. We are north of that now, and the numbers continue to go up. When we started, it was nowhere close to 1.5, so it’s not a linear growth pattern. We’re growing exponentially. I believe Microsoft has shared that we are ahead of adoption target.

 

 

Q. How long does it take for a consumer to download Silverlight?

 

A. Silverlight 1.0, available today, is a 1MB plug-in, so it depends on the connection, but it usually downloads in seconds. If you have a fast connection, it can be 10 seconds. If you have a slower connection, it’s still within less than a minute. Silverlight 1.0 will automatically upgrade to 2.0 for most users, so it will be an invisible process.

 

 

Q. What’s the value proposition for a consumer to download Silverlight as opposed using Flash Player that typically requires no download?

 

A. Two thoughts. First, Flash Player still requires a download if you have brand new computer that doesn’t come with Flash. So there I think we’re equal. If I go buy a new computer today, I will require a download for both players. Flash Player has been out there longer so if you have a desktop, you likely have already downloaded it. Honestly, I don’t think of either Silverlight or Flash as having a value proposition by themselves. I think the value proposition comes from the content or the provider of the content who chooses to use one plug-in over the other. There’s nothing inherently good or bad in either plug-in. I think of them both as a utility.

 

If I log onto NBC to watch the Olympics later on this year, I will want to download Silverlight. The value proposition for me is getting all that rich content that NBC is going to provide. The nice thing is that now we have a plug-in out there and we’re noticing that people do tend to trust Microsoft when it comes to plug-ins. A lot of people are accustomed to saying ‘yes’ to a Microsoft plug-in., as opposed to some other providers’ plug-ins. Flash is already out there, so that’s easy, but other plug-ins have a harder time. 

 

 

Q. Can you give us a quick overview of what the NBC Olympics project will look like?

 

A. What you will get is a very comprehensive, rich, interactive media Olympic experience optimized for your bandwidth. You will see in the neighborhood of 2,500 hours live content; you will be able to see highlights and editorials about all Olympic events. You can do picture in picture, overlay commentary, and may see a little bit of advertising in some scenarios. They need to monetize it somehow.

 

 

Q. So what’s the future of the platform?

 

A. Well, whatever our customers want. 

 

 

Q. What are they going to want?

 

A. From an enterprise standpoint, you should expect convergence between our RIA experience and our desktop experience. Today, Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation, which is our desktop presentation technology, already share XAML, so there’s a very strong offering around reuse of assets, skills, and tools between a Silverlight (Web-based) application and a desktop (Windows Presentation Foundation) application. I’m expecting we will continue to converge around those two models to the point where reuse will be even higher than it is today.

 

Another thing that you should expect to see is obviously innovation, richer platforms. We’ll add more controls and features to Silverlight. We are, of course, also going to continue to extend our strength on video and imaging.

 

 

Q. Will those expectations be realized in Silverlight 3.0?

 

A. Much of what I mentioned is already in 2.0. What you’ll see in 3.0 is continued innovation and convergence.

 

 

Q. Do you have a release date for 3.0?

 

A. No, we don’t even know if it’s called 3.0. We’re very agile. Silverlight has been an aggressive project and has been agile from the very beginning. That’s from a Microsoft standpoint standard. For example, shipping a Version 1.0 and then shipping a Version 2.0 within a year-and-a-half is very aggressive for us. We will continue to stay agile, so there might be a 2.5 or something like that. Silverlight does get serviced literally every quarter, so you see innovation every quarter regardless of whether you see a major release or not. 

 

 

Q. Is there anything you’d like to add for our readers today?

 

A. Just to summarize, we talked about ‘why Silverlight.’ Again, its strength comes from being a .NET technology, high reuse with the desktop, a richer platform and a familiar platform.

 

Jaime, this has been great.  Thank you very much for taking the time.

You’re entirely welcome. Thanks for the opportunity.

 

 

About Jaime Rodriguez
For more from this author, visit Jaime Rodriguez’s blog