Exclusive: Microsoft to Push Silverlight via Redesigned Homepage
Several months ago, Microsoft inserted themselves into the RIA framework business - years too late and against pretty scary odds - with the initial release of the Silverlight framework. Microsoft Silverlight is the online counterpart …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft entered the rich internet application race late, shipping the first Silverlight release months after rivals had staked out the space — a gap Sun was already attacking publicly by May 2007, when it went after Adobe Apollo, Ajax, and Silverlight in one swing. Now NeoSmart reports, unconfirmed by Microsoft, that the company plans a redesigned homepage built around promoting Silverlight.
If accurate, the move matters because it converts Microsoft's most-visited web property into an install funnel for a runtime that otherwise has to win downloads on merit against Flash's entrenched base — exactly the kind of distribution lever a late entrant has and a framework vendor like Sun does not.
First-order effects
- A homepage redesign tied to Silverlight would put the runtime pitch in front of Microsoft's massive existing homepage audience at zero acquisition cost, directly attacking Adobe's Flash install lead.
- Adobe's AIR and Flash teams face promotion on Microsoft's own turf rather than a neutral feature comparison — the battleground shifts from developer tooling to default reach.
Second-order effects
- Rivals would be pushed to answer with their own bundled distribution — Adobe leaning on Flash's ubiquity across third-party sites, Sun seeking partners for JavaFX-era reach — turning the RIA contest into a fight over who controls the front door users arrive through.
- Developers choosing a framework get a new signal to price in: Microsoft's willingness to spend its own prime web real estate suggests a commitment beyond the initial release that arrived years behind schedule.
Third-order effects
- If platform owners keep seeding client runtimes through owned web properties, RIA competition consolidates around whoever owns high-traffic defaults, disadvantaging standalone framework vendors without a consumer destination.
- The pattern points toward web platform battles being decided by distribution assets as much as technology — a structural edge that regulators and partners may eventually scrutinize as Microsoft extends desktop dominance habits onto the web.
The trend: The rich internet application race is becoming a distribution war, with platform vendors leveraging owned high-traffic web properties to seed runtimes that late market entries cannot win on technology alone.