I took the decision to develop using Silverlight becuase I've got a strong background in using the Microsoft stack for development, wanted to get in on the ground floor with a new technology and follow it as it matures and becuase I wanted to (try!) to produce a richer user experience within the browser.
As I said, I understand that this is going to be a limiting factor in some regards, but I couldn't have built what I did in any other technology (that's not to say that someone else couldn't have, just for my particular circumstances).
I'm hopeful that as Silverlight adoption increases this will become less of a problem, I'm also hopeful that colaab may act as a showcase for my Silverlight abilities and lead to further contract work, which in turn can help to fund product development.
Will that work in firefox/safari/opera on windows?
Also, the web isn't composed of windows machines. It's a mishmash of a billion different devices. The vast majority of which, know html, javascript, and not much else. Seems a bad idea to only write for a small subset of them.
I don't mind making Safari 'potentially crash more' - I only mind if it actually does crash more. Since Safari crashes are very few and far between, and haven't noticeably increased since I installed Silverlight some time ago, this potential problem isn't high on my list of priorities.
I suppose I can always go back to Lynx if these things really bother me too much.
I've used Silverlight on Firefox (Vista, Windows 7) with no problems, not even having to restart the browser.
Silverlight is actually pretty good; it's a much easier experience for developers than Flash/Flex. You might hate Microsoft, but you shouldn't hate the tech.
it's hard not to hate the tech when historically MS makes their stuff ignore standards and evolve into something for Windows only.
Adobe, while not perfect itself, has been committed to keeping Flash cross platform. This makes Flash harder to hate than Silverlight despite the high cost of developer tools
IE is still 70% of traffic. So, if you write something in Silverlight, and IE maintains that, you're going to work in 70% + however many non-IE clients have Silverlight or are willing to get it.
That will be most everyone. People will do just about anything you ask them to. The prevalence of phishing has proven that. They'll put their online banking creds into any site that has bankofamerica somewhere in the domain name. They'll buy Viagra from an anonymous email through a Costa Rican pharmacy. They'll most certainly click the button that says "Install Silverlight from Microsoft to watch the video".
It takes a few startups to jump in and push Silverlight into popularity. IMHO, it is a better and more open RIA technology than Flash, so I'm happy to see it used! (Although, you don't have to use it everywhere. The signup form didn't need it, for example).
Silverlight being better than Flash doesn't logically conclude to making Silverlight a good idea and deserving of support. A lesser evil is still an evil.
I consider the fact that Flash is pretty terrible a feature, as at least is helps discourage people from only using it in places where it's absolutely essential. I firmly believe RIAs are a fundamentally bad idea and the quicker they are replaced with open standards the better.
Interestingly, I have silverlight installed on my macbook (Until later today probably when I uninstall it).
The reason being, earlier this month I bought an xbox360 (There is no choice, be stupid and spend a ton on a ps3 with its ridiculous bluray, or be stupid and spend less on an xbo360).... I bought the lips game, and went to lips.com to see what songs you can buy. It requires silverlight... for a list of songs. I installed it reluctantly, and in the most hideously badly rendered font you can imagine, it said "Song list coming soon".
so if you found a great application that perfectly matched your needs, you wouldn't use it purely because it required installing software on your computer?
The whole point of a collaboration type app, is that you can use it from anywhere - your laptop, desktop, iphone, nokia, netbook, internet cafe, library, wii, etc etc
Requiring a user install some software negates the whole point for me.
I'm also betting against installable software (Silverlight plugins excepted!). You just need to look at Joost's traffic since they went web-based rather than desktop client:
I'm hopefull that over the coming months / years Microsoft manage to get Silverlight out there and available on as many platforms as possible, allowing me to write applications that can take advantage of that reach.
In the meantime the aim is to start building up enough user numbers to create a viable business, I've got very low overheads and no debt so hopefully that can come from the existing Silverlight install base + people who are willing to install it if they think the application will do a job for them.
As I said, I understand that this is going to be a limiting factor in some regards, but I couldn't have built what I did in any other technology (that's not to say that someone else couldn't have, just for my particular circumstances).
I'm hopeful that as Silverlight adoption increases this will become less of a problem, I'm also hopeful that colaab may act as a showcase for my Silverlight abilities and lead to further contract work, which in turn can help to fund product development.
Thanks for the feedback!