Joe Beda, development lead on the Avalon team at Microsoft, discusses whether Avalon will be the technology that Microsoft uses to replace the Web.
Is Avalon a way to take over the Web?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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A few years back I wrote a design paper on an XML-based system that could be used to “replace the web”. Well, not replace it completely but to replace the more application-like sites. However, I ditched the project when I heard about .NET, frankly because I realised that no-one would care about my ideas (no matter if they were good or bad), it would never become a standard. Look what happend to rebol during the .NET hype for example.
MS really has a chance, not to take over the web, but to divide the web into even more fragments. I hope they keep away from it.
(and no, I didn’t watch the video, could anyone give me a short summary?)
Summary:
A Joe Beda followup comment:
Java, in my opinion, tried to have its cake and eat it too. By going for rich and reach they ended up compromising on both. IE/DHTML/Trident fell in to the same trap, I think.
Microsoft can’t kill the web — it would be arrogant of us to think that we could. Avalon will run just on Longhorn, so, by definition, it isn’t a replacement for the web. All we can do is make Windows a more compelling platform for people to write software on. The strategy that Avalon is taking is to take some of the things that people love about writing for the web and “adopting” those in to windows.
Anywho, OSS (IBM,Sun,Novell as well) have 2 or 3 years to offer something or it’s going to be more of same ole, same ole for Linux (not dead necessarily, but more like the guy who doesn’t get invited to all the cool parties
. Hell, I can’t even run Shockwave yet.
Unfortunatly, somebody has to lead the web and why not the most powerful company. Javascript is a very poor technology, and so is Java. I don’t mind Microsoft doing it, because they will do a good job, I just hope they allow it to be truly open via competitive toolsets and information needed to build solutions on top of it.
Unfortunatly, somebody has to lead the web and why not the most powerful company.
It’s seriously bad to rely on one single company to develop the standards because it leaves them with a very powerful weapon. I seriously doubt that MS will listen to another companys suggestions, I doubt that they will be willing to welcome them with open arms, and I doubt that they wouldn’t force people to pay royalties.
W3C is doing an excellent job IMO, let’s stick to it.
“lets have a party over this thread, microsoft driving standards! They’ve always done it anyway OSS just clones commercial software really, thats all they tend to do.”
Is this before or after MS copied Xerox PARC and then Apple? Before or after MS bought DOS, Explorer and a bunch of other software to sell?
This Channel9 thing is a carefully scripted PR tool MS is using to try to co-opt brainshare. Oddly enough you will not see many critical comments….but I love gems like this:
“I hope Longhorn generates the same excitement as Win95”
uh, yeah.
Please see this for what it is – guerilla marketing. If you don’t like being marketed at, don’t feed the trolls.
Heh, yeah I had a good laugh at that comment. But frankly, I have never been excited over any version of Windows. But I guess, if Windows is the only thing you know of, then it’s gotta be exciting.
Is this before or after MS copied Xerox PARC and then Apple?
Actually, MS copied Apple. I don’t believe thay had any real view into Xerox PARC. Though they DID hire some folks, of which Charles Simonyi is the most notable.
“Heh, yeah I had a good laugh at that comment. But frankly, I have never been excited over any version of Windows. But I guess, if Windows is the only thing you know of, then it’s gotta be exciting.”
I remember people camping outside of stores the night before Windows 98 came out. Not sure why, but they were out there.
Um, I don’t know if you remember, but Windows 95 did generate a lot of excitement. It had a lot of publicity, and was a major change from previous versions of Windows. It was on CNN, it was on morning talk shows, it was on the radio. I guess you could compare to something like the release of Mandrake 10. Oh wait, no that was barely publicized at all. Anyway, the point is, Longhorn is supposed to be a similar, dramatic change from XP, as 3.11 -> 95 was.
>> Um, I don’t know if you remember, but Windows 95 did generate a lot of excitement.
You are confusing PR with excitement. “excitement” is a legit feeling of joyous anticipation. What followed the release of Win95 was a sponsored form of contrived anticipation, if you can even call it that.
Rewind and try again.
No, neither is a poor technology at all. They both have their uses.
JavaScript got a bad name due to people not using it properly when it first came around. Java got a bad name for their UI and MS didn’t help it by introducing incompatibilities in their version of the JVM.
Both of them are good technologies. JavaScript is very successful. Look at ASP, DHTML, etc. They all use JavaScript. It is in more places than you think because it is being used properly.
The same is true for Java on the enterprise level.
If one company/group is going to lead the charge, it should be the W3C (http://www.w3.org), the standards consortium for the web. Everybody should follow the standard they set forth.
Compare the linked forum with the article from yesterday about the Mozilla people’s fears of it happening.
Avalon will run just on Longhorn, so, by definition, it isn’t a replacement for the web. All we can do is make Windows a more compelling platform for people to write software on. The strategy that Avalon is taking is to take some of the things that people love about writing for the web and “adopting” those in to windows.
And when 90% of the web-viewing public is viewing content only viewable in Windows, that means there is a new de facto standard to replace current web technologies. That is a potentially dangerous place for everyone (but Microsoft) to be in the next couple years.
Of course, it remains to be seen how prevalent this tech will become and whether or not Mozilla can finally get their platform going.
what Avalon is offering, at a consumer level, is no different from the way the iTunes Music Store is built into iTunes – a browser with richer experience but limited purpose. it won’t replace the wider web, but will make certain stores more pleasant to visit.
Yes. The appearance of being open with XML, with the embedded, proprietary extensions stuff of course.
Quote:
“And when 90% of the web-viewing public is viewing content only viewable in Windows, that means there is a new de facto standard to replace current web technologies. That is a potentially dangerous place for everyone (but Microsoft) to be in the next couple years.”
I don’t think it will be that bad because MS keeps inventing new technologies, at least that is what I think.
In my opinion, Windows seems to be some sort of a test system for new technology.
Because of this, I think most people will still refer to the “standards”, and wait for new technology to get accepted.
I’m not 100% sure, but that’s why I think .net still isn’t used in most of the new software released on Windows (because I think it’s still not “mature”).
It’s of course a good marketing strategy.
Bring out roughly the same product but with new technology.
It sells.
I don’t mind, but I will not easily start learning those new technologies, and I think most people won’t either.
Or am I wrong?
“Unfortunatly, somebody has to lead the web and why not the most powerful company.”
Fortunately we have W3C. Those guys do a excellent job.
MS tries to deny the existence of indenpendent standards and rules. Powerful is not equal to the ability to take full responsibility of a system, which is open to everybody and will never submit to the monopolistic desires of one company.
Never underestimate the power of users. MS has experienced this when they tried to convince everybody that their homebrewed MSN network would beat the internet, before they turned back and told the world “we are the internet company”.
Most companies have also learned their lesson. If they dont provide plain html access without XYZ proprietary technologies, then a lot of people are not able or not willing to visit their pages. All those ppl are potential customers and therefor cannot be ignored.
Submitting yourself to the business plans of any company is equal to giving up your civil rights
If one company/group is going to lead the charge, it should be the W3C (http://www.w3.org), the standards consortium for the web. Everybody should follow the standard they set forth.
Yeah, if we were talking only about the Web, but the W3 has no say so in client-side apps (and not much say so on the Web for that matter too). Besides, “what” exactly are they going to lead the charge with? This isn’t about browsers.
dude java makes the fastest search engine technology that i’ve seen so far. I use it in my office and its tested with millions of queries. Seriously you Open source radical people who want to screw over professional programmers need to get a big life and shut up. this ain’t no linux website
Just a followup:
If people are so concerned about XAML, then email W3 and stop whining. Tell them to get behind XUL or something. OSS, W3, Mozilla, whoever, have had plenty of time to do something, but they have not, so no one is to blame but themselves.
But the 99% of the web developers will use it. Let see the web pages on the net: most of sites are optimized for Internet Explorer only. Nobody care with Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, Safari. IMHO without .NET support the *nix based operatition systems will dead, at least on the desktop side.
Saw the vid. A whole lot of words flew right through my ears. Have no idea what hes talking about. I dont see how installing things will be easier, I certainly dont trust going to a website and not having to worry about spyware. Also this media thing hes talking about interating with servers seems to not make sense in the end user standpoint. People have plugins or their media player can access online files through streaming. How does this avalon thing really make my experience different I wonder.
just noticed avalon is almost no java backward
Saw the vid. A whole lot of words flew right through my ears. Have no idea what hes talking about.
Avalon is an API, but more than that too. Simple explanation, but good enough for here: Avalon is Microsoft’s answer to Aqua, MX, Java, and browsers in general, all in one. Not just in form, but in function as well.
*shakes head*
I think it might be good for Microsoft to create their own (big) island of Windows only Internet. Maybe then the rest of the Internet could go back to normal, using open standards. Linux, Mac, *BSD and Unix systems could all communicate and interoperate using any web browsers and other open standards based software they choose because hopefully brain dead web sites “designed for Internet Explorer” would dwindle and fade into obscurity.
I rarely have problems with web sites as it is so most content that is important to me already works well under Linux and OS X.
Yeah, if we were talking only about the Web, but the W3 has no say so in client-side apps (and not much say so on the Web for that matter too). Besides, “what” exactly are they going to lead the charge with? This isn’t about browsers
No, this isn’t about client side apps. But, the web isn’t about the application, it is about the content. By defining a standard way to access the content and interact with it (i.e. XHTML, XAML, XUL, XML, etc) it allows developers to develop applications that access that content properly.
If people are so concerned about XAML, then email W3 and stop whining. Tell them to get behind XUL or something. OSS, W3, Mozilla, whoever, have had plenty of time to do something, but they have not, so no one is to blame but themselves.
The W3C will get behind one. They have XForms right now, but I’m not sure if it is rich enough at the 1.0 spec to match XUL/XAML.
Let see the web pages on the net: most of sites are optimized for Internet Explorer only.
Optimized isn’t the right word. Generally, CSS files have to be dumbed down to be compatible with IE since Microsoft is under no pressure to make it standards compliant. Microsoft is holding back adoption of improvements to the internet while continuing to persue proprietary methods in their place.
Remember people, it is important that ‘we’ (being the free speech&freedom loving persons we are) get busy networking as well in the years to come. Masses of well-connected people can do amazing things
No, this isn’t about client side apps.
Ah, but it is. My point is that XAML is used render the GUI and desktop apps as well as content. So it’d be strange for the W3 telling companies how they should write GUI’s.
Also, the reason why MS doesn’t choose others is because they can tie in XAML into the platform itself — “richer” than “rich”. Whether people choose “richer” over “standards” is hard to tell.
Anyways, this will be Platform war, not Browser War.
If Micro$oft keeps insisting on being the final “natural monopoly” over everything computing then they should have to take the final consequence of being such a “natural monopoly”,
REGULATION AS A PUBLIC UTILITY!!!!