A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks in the ongoing fight between Microsoft's Silverlight and Adobe's Flash.  We're seeing uptake in interest in the Toronto and Canadian markets for Silverlight-based solutions (including Silverlight with Sharepoint and Silverlight for Mobile) because the experience is just that much better.

First, we received, for the first time ever, penetration statistics (aka adoption rates) from Microsoft for Silverlight.  Scott Guthrie (Corporate Vice President, .Net Developer Division), who is the guy when it comes to Silverlight, recently posted that Silverlight is installed on 25%+ of PCs.

Second, Guthrie showcased a whole bunch of Silverlight apps including NetFlix and Blockbuster and another whack of stuff around HD video which is just plain cool - check out www.smoothhd.com.  Note to readers - I'm not honestly sure who does HD better but the Silverlight HD at this site is stunning.

I was able to confirm, via a few customers who use Omniture, that this 25% claim is accurate.  This puts them still well-behind Flash, which is often promoted as the 'most installed software in the world'.  It consistently has penetration north of 95%.  Still, I'm impressed with what Microsoft's been able to do with Silverlight downloads but it really has to get in the range of Flash (say 80%+) for the mainstream to give it a serious look.  Silverlight penetration remains a serious concern for consumer-facing properties.

There were also some sizable announcements this week from Adobe, out of their Adobe Max conference.

First, came word, that Major League Baseball had dropped Silverlight in favor of Flash.  I see this as a big blow to Microsoft - MLB seemed to be a flagship customer and was onstage at Mix (Microsoft's Web conference) in Vegas in 2007 when Silverlight was announced.  The demo of MLB at Mix was amazing!

Second, came the news the the NY Times was launching an AIR-based reader (AIR is a technology that lets Flash run outside a browser).  This was a shocker to me, because the existing NY Time Reader was a flagship win for Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) technology which is sort-of a big-brother to Silverlight.  I had heard as well that work was underway to make the existing reader Silverlight-based, which would then allow the reader to work cross-platform (i.e. on a Mac).

In the end, I'm impressed with what both Microsoft and Adobe are doing.  With this degree of competition, the enterprise (the people who pay to have these apps created) will win because the platform (Flash or Silverlight) is getting better faster through competition.  Consumer will also win, because they'll get more and better applications and experiences.  Stay tuned - I think this one is just getting going.

For previous posts on this topic see - Microsoft's Silverlight vs Adobe's Flash - Which is better?.

Every now and again, if you're open to it and you read enough, you get that great experience of having your eyes pried wide open, your ignorance exposed, your mind spun.  Tar Sands by Andrew Nikiforuk provided such an experience. Tar Sands is likely one-sided, and I must seek out opposing viewpoints.  For now, I'm committed to three posts. For now, I can only point you at Nikiforuk's Declaration of a Political Emergency.  And to quote something so profound, it has not left me since I read it weeks ago: "As Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis wrote, greed is a form of pride, and 'Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.'" - Nikiforuk, p56

Steve started the "Books" tag with the short review of Break all the Rules.  So, I thought I'd continue the theme.  It's long been one of my favorite interview questions - "So, what have you read lately?".  It's very telling, I find.  One time, I was interviewing a guy for a intermediate .Net developer role.  He was not that engaged until I asked him this question at which point he positively exploded about his interest in German literature; I think he was working on a Masters in the area.  That completely changed the interview in such a positive way...

Anyway, one of my younger kids brought home "At Vimy Ridge: Canada's Greatest World War I Victory" from school.  It was a good chance to brush up on my Canadian WWI history.  It's written for younger readers :), so I was able to get through it in one night.

Some interesting facts (more detail here):

• Vimy Ridge is in France (I'm just sayin'....)
• Some 100,000+ Canadian troops fought in the Battle for Vimy Ridge in April 1917.  3, 598 were killed. 
• The defeat at Vimy was a critical blow to the Germans on the Western front
• In total, Canada lost 60,661 soldiers in WWI. 
• Over 700,000 Canadians served out of a population of 8,000,000 -> That's almost 1 in 10.  Wow!
• The Canadian effort at Vimy and WWI is seen as a key part of our nationhood, leading to the Statute of Westminster in 1931 which gave Canada control of its foreign policy (now that, I didn't know)

The Canadian effort at Vimy is remembered at the Vimy Ridge Memorial in France, on "Hill 145" which is the high point of Vimy Ridge at 145 metres.  It looks to be a spectacular memorial (note to self - do not go to France again, and not visit the memorial)

Now I didn't get through the whole book with my child, but I was asked the most troubling question "What do you get when you win a war?" (zeesh!), and more pragmatically "What's longer, a battle or a war?".

This is a proud part of Canadian history - I'm glad my child's library trip in primary school gave me occasion to be reminded.

 

Through a few different routes, I'm one degree away from Rick Segal.  Segal was at Microsoft and I know a few folks who know him.  He was also at Chapters, and back in the days he was there everyone in the Microsoft partner community wanted a gig at Chapters.  He also did a stint at MicroForum, but we won't mention that. He's currently a partner a JLA Ventures, which is perhaps where our connection is closest.  JLA Ventures was part of the VC behind www.grocerygateway.com, which was imason's first big .com customer.  Although I never worked with Segal, I did work with one of the other partners at JLA.

In any event, I follow Segal's blog "Doing the Voodo VCs do in Canada".  He's got some amazing insight into the market and he sees a lot of proposals.  Rick is part of the group that is managing the BlackBerry Partners Fund, which isn't a surprise because Jim Balsillie is on the board for JLA, so he must be seeing some pretty cool mobile stuff.  If you want to get into the mind of a VC (something that you should only do after consulting with your doctor), then you should really check out Segal's blog.

Some recent posts that I thought were really insightful or just plain funny:

• Jimi King and the Power of Social Media - on how everyday things are being done around social media
• NYC Today & Observations - on how much you can learn by watching everyday people use technology
• Why I Love Capitalism - on Joe The Plumber Gear popping up right after McCain (or was it Obama?) uttered those words...

Anyway, check out Segal here - funny, insightful and frequent.

A long long time ago (OK, it was February 2006) I wrote about Web 2.0 in a post called Thoughts on Ajax/Atlas - 9: My $0.02 on Web 2.0.  What was fascinating to me -- and lots of others -- about Web 2.0 was the interesting ways that people were driving value out of their data.  I spoke with a lot of customers in 2006 about Web 2.0; I emphasized that it was really important to figure out how and what unique data their proposed application would capture.  I reminded them that the genius of Amazon wasn't just a great online retail experience (something other eventually copied), but how they mined their data to provide a differentiated experience (the Amazon ratings and recommendations still can't be beat to this day).  And Google wasn't just a great search algorithm (which it was and still is) but it was also about how they mined their search data.

Even with that though, I was totally blown away by GoogleFlu.  Basically, they've taken their search data and used it to monitor the progression of the flu through the United States.  You can read about how it works here including a great animated graph that shows how their monitoring is about 2 weeks ahead of the Center for Disease Control (CDC).  It's really amazing that there's such a strong correlation between people search for 'flu' on the web, and the actual rates of flu infection in the community [note, the algorithm to make the correlation is likely much more sophisticated]. 

Wow!  Now that's Web 2.0.  And it's a little bit scary... :)  What else are they watching????

By the way, this little tidbit was brought to me by TED (see TED - One of my favorite sites out there).  Google.org is headed by Larry Brilliant who was a 2006 TED Prize winner...

I had a chance to see Jane Fulton Suri speak about a year ago at the Rotman School of Business.  I was really really impressed.  She was speaking about "thoughtless acts", a topic she had explored over some 20 years and published a picture-book on called -- not surprisingly -- thoughtless acts.  You can get on Amazon (at imason, you'll find it on our bookshelf).  There's even a website - www.thoughtlessacts.com. 

I was really inspired after her talk, and the book is really awesome too - it's not what you're thinking.  Suri doesn't catalog the litany of bad things that people do; rather this is an walk through all the millions of things that people do to meet their needs without thinking.  Most of it appears trivial in the extreme - resting a shopping cart against a pole so it doesn't roll away; using a squared railing to rest a coffee cup; using the book you're reading on the beach to shade your eyes from the sun.

What can we learn from this?  Tons!  What I took away from this is the realization that humans are amazingly adaptive and very innovative in their use of the physical world.  If it suits our needs, we'll 'misuse' nearly anything!  There's so much for the Interactive Design people that we have at imason to learn from people like Suri who cut their teeth in the Industrial Design world.

What I'd love to know, and what I'm thinking about is "how do we allow the same 'misuse' in software?"

It's been on my list for a while to watch Obama's speech following the words of his pastor, Pastor Wright.  The speech was made in March, 2008.  Although I had read by Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope this speech was on my list and has been now for about 6 months...  Given that it's election day and all, I sat down this morning to give it a watch...  I was not disappointed.

 

Next up for me is the speech for the 2004 Democratic National Convention... This has been on my list now for about 4 years...

Do you ever visit TED? 

If you don't, you should.  It has one of the best collections of short talks by some of the most recognized names in science, business and politics.

I recently watched Michael Shermer's talk "Why people believe strange things".  The whole 13 minute talk is entertaining but the last 5 minutes or so is pure genius, including a dissection of the Zepplin lyrics played backwards... 

It's so relevant to me and the business of imason - when it comes to technology, there is so much misinformation and preconceptions; our job is to untangle this web and move forward based on science and to keep the notions of business value front and center... this is what imason is all about.