That is some interesting feedback there. I might just take you up on that bet. Have you seen my latest post:

http://www.scottlogic.co.uk/blog/colin/2009/07/news-from-the-silverlight-3-uk-launch-and-an-answer-to-my-question-on-silverlight-adoption/

I would guess that it will just under 50% by end of year

I agree with quite a lot of what you say – perhaps it is more an indication of the caution in the financial domain at the moment.

Regards, Colin E.
P.S. SL does not have all 3 trigger types; property, event and data – that is what I was referring to.

I have to agree that security is a concern for many enterprises, but I already know of one leading investment bank that is adopting Silverlight for a trading front-end. It’s advantages as a LOB platform are numerous and its not just about “shiny/animated” buttons etc. Speed of prototyping in SketchFlow and speed of development with decent C# developers is incredible. SL3 represents a paradigm shift in the designer/developer workflow. I am constantly amazed at how quickly Silverlight apps can be built.

The penetration argument, I believe, is moot and it’s all been done before. Flash vs Java vs DHTML etc.. Flash was at version 5 (with no actionscript) before it had 90% penetration, which it hit circa June 2002 (and that was just PCs, did not include PDAS, mobiles etc). At that same time Flash 6 was at 30% penetration!

The iPhone has revolutionised the market for mobile apps and Silverlight 3 is now in a position to really capitalise on that market. Support for touch-screen apps in Silverlight has a strong future too. Windows Mobile 7 will increase penetration of SL apps also.

I would bet my house we will see 50%+ penetration by year-end.

Just my two-pence worth.

Regards,
Richard

PS Small errata: You will find that Silverlight has had triggers since version 2.

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Amusing, illogical, both of those things it may be. For consumer applications I think your argument holds – if you tell the end-user that they are going to get a really cool application, and to use it they just have to download this little 4Mb plugin, then, yes, they will download it.

However, for business applications it is a little different. Often the end-users will use your software from their place of work, in tightly controlled IT environments. Here the installation of a new plugin is not something the end-user can do themselves, it is a matter for the IT team. If Silverlight is not already on their list of approved software, getting approval can be a tiresome and long-winded process.

It really is only a small obstacle, and some of our customers say “If we make this cool application, people will install Silverlight”, however, most do not want to take on that risk – no matter how small it might be.

There are other factors too. Some managers might see the 25% – 30% Silverlight penetration figures and start to wonder if this indicates problems other than simply the time taken to adopt a new technology. Perhaps … they see the low adoption figures as an indication that Silverlight just isn’t any good?

In the current climate, Financial companies have to be more careful than ever, and minimising technology risk is part of this.

Anyhow, thanks for your views – I am always interested in what other think.

Regards, Colin E.

It seems so illogical. In fact, for twenty years of development I never met a customer who refused to install something if they want to use some program.

Sometimes, they fail to install, that’s true, when the deployment is buggy and plainly just does not work – and they give up. Sometimes the price was too high. Sometimes hardware requirements. Sometimes the program was not needed.

But I never met something like that:

- “Are you graphic designer? Here is your free Photoshop. Works fine on your configuration”
- “Does it require installation?”
- “Yes. It will take 10 minutes and you should not do nothing.”
- “Thanks then, but no, I will continue to use Paint”.

Nevertheless, I know this is a very popular argument right now. Honestly, I just don’t get it.

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