Adobe AIR versus Microsoft Silverlight
Rich Internet Applications have been gaining a lot of popularity lately, but I had recently written about how some of the most popular tech blogs like TechCrunch, All About Microsoft and ReadWriteWeb had not done their homework and published information that is ridiculously wrong.
One of the most ludicrous results of their posts has been the several ill-informed comparisons of Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight all over the web. Even thought both AIR and Silverlight enable developers to build Rich Internet Applications, both of them are very different beings and cannot be compared…
Microsoft Silverlight is a browser plugin and is sort of similar to Adobe’s Flash Player and Flex Framework taken together
Adobe AIR is cross platform desktop runtime that allows developers to build desktop applications using web technologies, it has no real equivalent in the Microsoft world.
In response to my posts, Peter Elst started a badge campaign to let the world know that it is wrong to say the words AIR and Silverlight in the same breath.
So here’s my badge, feel free to use the image in whatever way you like and help spread the word.
May 21st, 2008
Yeah, of course the comparison is misguided–but in fact, it’s not THAT far off. I mean, Flash player and Air player … same thing really–just one is a plugin for the browser and one’s a runtime for desktop. They both play .swfs using the same basic language… with a few different rules.
Silverlight–it’s more like the Flash player. But… the reason it makes sense to compare to AIR is just that that’s where a lot of the press and pr that Adobe’s doing. Yeah, it’s different… those people who are really into this would know. Those people who are not involved enough to know this already probably wouldn’t really understand the difference anyway. I guess I’m saying–what’s the big deal exactly?
May 21st, 2008
It is a pretty big deal of tech journalists can’t even bother to get it right in my opinion Phillip. Its not rocket science and easy enough for anyone to see the clear distinction between Silverlight and AIR — tech journalism seems to be more about juggling buzzwords than any worthwhile commentary.
If this is the primary source for the general public and mainstream media to pick up on what is happening in technology that sure gives a skewed image.
I already see people asking for their next website to be built on AIR. You’ll always have ignorance but the huge amount of misinformation that gets spread around these days does nobody any good.
May 21st, 2008
this post is very good but it’s very hard to read because of its balckbackground
May 21st, 2008
I am sorry about that Ajay, a couple of other people have expressed that before so i am planning a theme change hopefully soon.
Thank you for the feedback.
May 21st, 2008
Well, who’s fault is it that customers are asking for websites to be built in AIR? Seems to me that Adobe would like this even if it’s frustrating to developers.
I agree the journalists should get their act together. This is so typical though. And.. considering that Adobe throws around the term like it’s a really big deal (okay, let’s just say for now it’s huge) it’s not surprising this kind of thing happens.
I’m just saying a lot of companies and their PR people play very loose and fast with facts and could care less if some misinformation gets out. But.. back to my take… I think I totally understand the technologies and I really don’t think there’s all that much wrong here. Okay, one’s a plugin, one’s a desktop player. So? There’s Java in the browser and one for the desktop. It’s not like if I sat down to explain this to my mom that in the end she’d say “Oh… I see… what kind of idiot would compare Silverlight to AIR–ha ha ha”. Just saying.
May 21st, 2008
Quick word: Make the background of the image transparent if you really want people to use it =]
May 21st, 2008
[...] Elst has started a badge campaign to help spread the word, and Mrinal Wadhwa has created a badge that people can use on their blogs (see the top of this post). What you do makes a [...]
May 21st, 2008
I HAVE ALSO WRITTEN SOME THING ABOUT BOTH OF THESE ADOBE AIR AND FOR MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT
PLEASE GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK ON BOTH OF THESE
IF I HAVE MISSED ANY POINT
May 22nd, 2008
here’s what you said – “Adobe AIR is cross platform desktop runtime that allows developers to build desktop applications using web technologies, it has no real equivalent in the Microsoft world.”
in the MS world there is a very real equivalent of the desktop application development for RIA development and that is called WPF or Windows Presentation Foundation.. Silverlight is a subset of this very framework shrunk to run in web scenarios..
May 22nd, 2008
@Abhishek Kant you’re right except the cross platform part… not that that’s always an issue… but to be accurate you can’t say WPF is xplatform.
I still think there’s really not that much diff except they’re offerings from different (and competing) companies.
May 22nd, 2008
Abhishek,
I know what WPF is and it is not an equivalent of AIR either, the keyword in that line about AIR is “with web technologies ” .. AIR allows you to create desktop applications with html/javascript/css if you wanted to, there is no equivalent of that in the microsoft world.
May 22nd, 2008
Oh and I mentioned what AIR can do and WPF cannot .. but actually comparing AIR and WPF is a big insult for WPF because being the native UI technology of a platform WPF can do a lot more than what AIR can even think of doing .. AIR (no matter what the marketing guys at Adobe say) is only a way of extending you web apps to the desktop .. it can do far less than what Cocoa or WPF can … but since it is targeted to be used by web developers it makes a lot of these things far easy to do.
May 23rd, 2008
Hi Mrinal,
This is imai (small and youngest RIA lover) .As your say,I have puth the badge at my blog -> http://riadocs.com/?p=24#comment-10 . I also submitted the link at dzone,within few hours it comes to the popular links.All happens good but,I received a comment as follows ,,,
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Ok I’m confused as well.
Aren’t silver light apps and .NET WPF apps developed using XAML and isn’t that common lingua across the two?
If yes, doesn’t that mean that a silver light app that runs on the browser could be run on the desktop as well on top of standard .NET runtime?
AIR == .NET run time?
except that .NET >>> AIR?
Please do clarify
…………………………………………………………….
I can’t able to get clear with this ..Waiting for your comments ..If possible have a visit on my blog ….Thanks for your badge too.
May 23rd, 2008
imai, that is the thing that i mentioned before as well.. Silverlight is XAML and so is WPF… so apps developed on Silverlight will run on WPF… being based off the web you have to restrict things like access to Hard Disk and that’s what Silverlight turns off.. XAML apps are run inside any other normal HTML page…
Silverlight is xcrossplatform as it can run on Mac and on Linux via the Mono Project…
Mrinal does mention that WPF is native to Windows can hence more powerful.. adding to that it is much more powerful in the media space i.e. videos and audio delivery..
at this time, the technology behind WPF and Silverlight is still being matured… so it may be some days off before you see real world impact of Silverlight BUT it is definitely coming… and this may be a good time to get started with that as there are very few experts in the market..
at the end, i agree with Phillip that these are technologies that are from different companies with same purpose.. and it is upto individuals choice.. you might also want to compare the cost of the tools available to do this development… the tool from Microsoft is called Expression Blend for Silverlight apps development..
you might want to also look at blog of Silverlight and WPF enthusiast Panduranga: http://www.thinkingms.com/pandurang/
May 23rd, 2008
Abhishek
The point I made in the post above was “AIR != Silverlight”
All I’m saying is that the comparison between AIR and Silverlight is irrelevant.
AIR and WPF is definitely a more relevant comparison but its still does not mean that AIR is equivalent to WPF .. and hence my statement above that AIR has no equivalent in the Microsoft world .. because the differences between AIR and WPF are way too many … the only common thing that they have is that both can be used to make applications that run on the desktop.
The statements in Imai’s comment ..
AIR == .NET is false because the differences are way too many and not negligible
.NET >>> AIR is false because there are things that AIR does better and there are things that .NET does better.
May 23rd, 2008
I can understand your frustration and at a technical level you are exactly right – but only in a very limited sense.
The truth is that line between desktop and RIA technologies is already blurred from a technical perspective.
For example, Curl (I work for them) has a single runtime that provides both a desktop- and a browser-based platform. You can develop Curl applications that run in the browser or can run on the desktop. In either case (applet or application) the Curl program has access to a quarantined section of the disk so the difference between RIA and Desktop is subtle at best.
The point is: Other RIA technologies are moving in the same direction as Curl which has offered this combination of desktop and web browser model for several years. Making the distinction between Silverlight and Adobe AIR isn’t going to help people in the long run. Eventually Silverlight will have an off-line desktop capability and so the distinction won’t hold.
May 25th, 2008
Richard,
I cannot agree more that the line is blurring and frankly I’m excited about the time when it will just not exist.
But in the mean time accuracy and clarity are important otherwise with your logic above we could end up with arguments as lame as HTML engines are equivalent to .NET or Java
Technology journalists and bloggers are supposed to report the state of technology as it exists and as Peter said above .. “its not rocket science”
May 25th, 2008
@Mrinal,
The lines between browser-based clients and desktop clients is already blurred. So in order to be accurate bloggers and journalists need to address that fact rather than getting hung up on differentiating between Silverlight and AIR.
There is, of course, the need to define different approaches and Silverlight and AIR do have different approaches to the same problem.
However, they are both trying to solve the same problem which is how to present information that is accessed via the Internet in a GUI representation across operating systems. Comparing Silverlight, AIR, Curl, Ajax seems very appropriate.
May 27th, 2008
@Aditya … sorry about that, I couldn’t find a transparent background image for the Silverlight logo
May 27th, 2008
mrinal, this may help:
http://cid-b57885a726c2b921.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Shared%20Pictures/big%7C_blue2.png
June 3rd, 2008
[...] Mrinal Wadhwa: Microsoft Silverlight is a browser plugin and is sort of similar to Adobe’s Flash Player and Flex Framework taken together [...]
July 11th, 2008
It seems from the current wave that the real battle in RIA in future will be between Adobe and Microsoft. And off course if one can implement a new feature as R&D, then other will copy and implement it and vice-versa.
Adobe has advantage being a family of Flash products. You may not find any website today without a flash movie in their portal. Microsoft need to come with cross-platform solution to be in completion.
August 6th, 2009
At least on Windows Silverlight 3 is capable of getting out of the browser.
October 25th, 2011
You and your buddy need to get your facts straight. Silverlight has everything Adobe Air has and more. And I am sure that you guys are totally objective being Adobe developers.