The Big Loser in This Year's Olympics: Adobe
Posted 08/15/08 at 11:33:11 AM | by Paul Lilly
It might not be well publicized, but there's a major war brewing between Microsoft and Adobe, and they're fighting for you. Each one of them wants to be your provider for rich media content, a task that has traditionally been served by Adobe with its Flash player, but one Olympic sized loss could change the game in Microsoft's favor.
It was Microsoft who won the deal to supply NBC with video-viewing technology via Silverlight for the Olympics in Beijing, and while Microsoft and NBC have ties that go back to their collaboration building MSNBC, Adobe could have been considered a favorite to the win the account based the mature nature of Flash technology. So how did Microsoft secure the gold?
"We talked about features like adaptive streaming, the ability to automatically keep checking how much bandwidth you have and deliver the appropriate quality stream and how to be smart about knowing what's coming up in the stream," said Rob Bennett, the general manager of sports for MSN.
In other words, Microsoft won the account on a combination of Silverlight's feature-set, and convincing NBC that Flash's scalability had never been put to an Olympic-size test, unlike Silverlight's underlying technology which is based on Windows Media technologies.
Of course, it's only one account, but it's not so much what Adobe lost, but what Microsoft gained. While download specifics have not been disclosed, we do know that it's registering 1.5 million downloads a day, and according to a spokeswoman for Microsoft, "in the last several days, more than 50 percent of the visitors to NBCOlympics.com on MSN already have Silverlight 2 installed."
An alternative is good if it works
Submitted by brockalee on Sat, 2008-08-16 12:07
I'm not super fond of Adobe. I constantly have problems with Flash, especially in Firefox. (I think because it doesn't use activeX.) And though thinking of a MS product working better on Mozilla software sounds odd, at least there's a chance. With MS I just worry that they'll do something with DRM that monks it all up... :(
You HAVE to install Silverlight...
Submitted by dwr50 on Sat, 2008-08-16 07:35
to view the Olympics online at MSNBC or NBC.They dont't give you much choice. I chose not to install.
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Convince NBC?
Submitted by Talcum X on Fri, 2008-08-15 12:10
Doesnt MS have a huge play in NBC...or OWN it? MSNBC???!! Something tells me they didnt have a choice.
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So how many would uninstall
Submitted by sdcat on Fri, 2008-08-15 12:04
So how many would uninstall silver light afterwards? Probably not too many, but how many would use it later on?
How Many Would Use It?
Submitted by One4yu2c on Sat, 2008-08-16 09:51
Your question of how many surfers would use Silverlight after installing it gets right to the point. Because Microsoft snagged this account, there are now more Silverlight-enabled PCs out there, which may encourage website developers to take advantage of the technology. It's a tough proposition to program content for a limited userbase, and the decision becomes much easier once an expanded userbase is in place.









